Sympathy For Characters In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

The novel Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck takes place in California around the time of the great depression in the 1930’s. This novel is about two migrant farm workers, George Milton and Lennie small, which teaches a dark lesson about a human’s nature. In the end, George is faced with an unthinkable act that he is forced to do as a result of Lennie’s incapability to realize his own strengths and weaknesses. The novella’s main themes are the impossibility of achieving the American Dream, and loneliness demonstrated by each characters desire for companionship and being enticed by George and Lennie’s dream. I believe that it is possible to have at least some sympathy for most of the key characters in the novel. Slim deserves some sympathy because he is seen as the conscious of book throughout the novel. Usually whatever Slim decides is what the rest of the men follow. When Carlson is trying to convince Candy to let him kill his old good for nothing dog and “He looked helplessly at him, for Slim’s opinions were the law” [p.45] this explains …show more content…
Curley’s wife deserves a little sympathy because no one deserves to die like she did, even though she is a trouble maker throughout most of the novella. She deserves sympathy because her dream of being a famous actress is taken away from her and she is living on the ranch to get away from her mother and she has no one to associate with so her personality is really flirtatious. Lennie also deserves very little sympathy for his actions in the novel. While he doesn’t understand his own strengths, he knows what he has done is wrong, but the only consequence he cares about is George not letting him tend to the rabbits as he clearly says “Now maybe George ain’t gunna let me tend no rabbits, if he finds out you got killed.” [p.85] Although it is sad when Lennie’s companion murders him, it had to be done before someone else did it and because Lennie was not gunna