of mice and men

"Of Mice and Men", by John Steinbeck, is composed of four major themes. These themes are the value of dreams and goals, moral responsibility, social injustice, and the bond of friendship and loyalty.

The value of dreams and goals are that they provide hope and the desire to keep going in life, rather than lying down to die. When Lennie is feeling depressed in the woods he asks George to tell him about the "dream farm" again. This is the farm that George and Lennie hope to own someday. Even though this dream seems almost impossible at the time it still generates enough hope to keep Lennie and George going. When George starts talking bout it Lennie gets excited and happy and so does George. Another example of the power of dreams is when Candy over hears George and Lennie's "dream farm" and becomes a part of the dream. Candy progresses from a depressed sad attitude to a cheerful excited one. He now has hope of doing something and it came from the "dream farm". A final example of the value of dreams and goals is when Crooks hears of the farm. Crooks is a lonely black man who has no future, bu

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Candy felt poor inside because it was his job to shoot his dog but instead Carlson shot him. In the battle to arise up in the world, people rarely care who is on the bottom and why they are there. When Crooks tells Miss Curley to leave his room Miss Curley threatens that she can get him lynched. Curley is rude and mean toward Lennie for the whole reason that Lennie is a broad fellow. Crooks only responds with a series of "yes ma’am" 's then becomes beyond depressed.

Steinbeck used these four themes to show what problems America was facing at the time. Curley doesn’t like men that are larger than him, so he singles out Lennie and attacks him. It was the right thing to do, and even though it almost killed George inside to kill his best friend, he still did it. When Crooks starts telling Lennie that George might die or get hurt Lennie gets mad. Candy felt like he neglected his moral responsibility to shoot his own dog. A final example of social injustice is Candy being old. Many people of good character have to honor certain moral responsibilities. This shows that when a person goes against what is morally right to them, they hate themselves for it. t when he starts to think of how he can be a part of the dream he also gets happy and excited, until his dream is crushed. George saw Lennie being hurt and tells Lennie to fight back out of friendship.

Approximate Word count = 752
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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