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Theme Of Tragedy In Of Mice And Men

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Tragedy will reveal the beauty behind the pain. This truth is made clear in Thomas Scarseth's excerpt "A Teachable Good Book: Of Mice and Men". In the excerpt, Scarseth states that Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is a tragedy. The tragedy is the pain of living life and being defeated can be transformed into the beauty of art. With the book, Of Mice and Men, Scarseth established his opinion in three ways. The first claim was how the tragedy in Of Mice and Men is in a Shakespearean sense. His second claim is that tragedy is meant to hurt not to comfort readers. His last claim was how the book shows the beauty of the tragedy and pain.

First and foremost, Scarseth concluded that Of Mice and Men is in a Shakespearean sense of tragedy. An example …show more content…
There are many instances in the excerpt where Scarseth proves this, "… one function of literature is to help us deal with the pain of real life by practicing with the vicarious pains of tragic art" (Scarseth), and "the grossness is a way of presenting briefly the complex turmoil of life" (Scarseth). He states the book helps show people there are many forms of tragedy, and that it is to help with the real-life pain of tragedy. The book's grossness and horror are not for the pleasure of a happy ending, but to explain the honest complexity of life. I then decided to analysis Scarseths second claim that tragedies are not meant to have happy endings. In the actual definition of tragedy provided by Merriam Webster is tragic events have an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character. Even the literal definition says tragedies aren't supposed to have a happy ending, and without a happy ending, tragedies reveal the true horror of the complexity of life and the hurt. My opinion on Scarseth's claim that tragedies are meant to hurt is that I once again agree with him. On pages 106 and 107 in Of Mice and Men, this is when George kills Lennie and he was shaking at the thought of doing it. When George finally does it, he is in shock and hurt that he had to kill his best friend. With this quote "'An' I got you. We got each other, that's what, that gives a hoot in hell about us,' Lennie cried in triumph"(Steinbeck 104), this explains how they were close and shared the same dream that they would get the ranch together, but without Lennie, their dream does not prosper. Not only did George kill his friend, but he also killed their dream of having a ranch together. This makes the tragedy hurt, death, and unfulfilled dreams. In all both Scarseth and I agree that tragedy is meant to

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