The Role Of Jealousy In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Country singer, Gary Allen once said, “You can be the moon and still be jealous of the stars.” The moon represents people who seemingly have everything: the right clothes, money, connections, and everything, at least on the outside; while the stars represent the group that is shunned because of the jealously and hate that the moon feels for them. Gary Allen used the solar system to represent that even though someone could be the center but can still envy the rest. When people envy it leads to prejudice because they decide to put the person down who has more than them to put them on the same level, either through class or race. Shared humanity is acting for the good of people without expecting anything in return; when prejudice and jealousy come into play they make human act of spite and hate and not out of the good of people. In John Steinbeck's, “Of Mice and Men”, human jealousy and prejudice prevent people from sharing their humanity.
Jealousy results as a roadblock for shared humanity. In Of Mice and Men, Curley, the ranch owner’s son, was a small man. One day Curley went into the bunkhouse looking for his wife when there were two new farmhands unpacking their belongings and realized one was much taller and stronger than him, Lennie, his entire demeanor …show more content…
Shared humanity is difficult when jealousy is also being displayed because it causes people to want to be better than the other and people stop caring about whether or not someone is okay. Prejudice hurts people’s motivation for shared humanity; when Crooks lost all of his motivation to be apart of the group and grown to resent them for it not caring about what happens to them. Shared humanity leads to a better working society but so many factor make it so it does not get implemented, what people need to do, in order to function, is to put aside their differences and look out for one