Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - Research Paper Example

Mice and Men: Foreshadowing the Loss of Dreams John Steinbeck’s ic novella Of Mice and Men tightly focuses on four pivotal days within the lives of two itinerant farmhands—George Milton and Lennie Small. Throughout these days, Steinbeck creates a tragic cycle of discussions on the men’s utopia, dream farm weighed down and ultimately destroyed by human violence towards animals and eventually towards each other. Steinbeck artfully uses foreshadowing to detail the battle between friendship and idealism contrasted to isolation and reality in this tragic Great Depression Era story. Steinbeck himself cared deeply about the lives of migrant workers as evidenced by his compassionate tone and creation of complex characters struggling in a competitive society. Steinbeck combined styles of modernism and realism to explore the lives of people living in and traveling through Southern California. Steinbeck’s parents, a Monterey treasurer and a school teacher/stay-at-home mom, taught him a love of literature from an early age. Although he did attend Stanford University for three years, he left without completing his degree. These years, as well as his journalism job, provided the formative substance of his writing career for he worked and traveled throughout California as a short-term hired hand at mills, farms, and larger estates. During these years he came face to face with the resilience with which migrant workers faced their destitute, unstable lives. Throughout the rest of Steinbeck’s career he focused Name 2 on the plight of the underdog within an increasingly unfair, capitalistic world. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his monumental novel, The Grapes of Wrath, focused on the dreams and tragedy of the Joad family, and for his combined works he was awarded the 1963 Nobel Prize. All of Steinbeck’s characters face issues equally derived from competitive social forces, the economic downfall known as the Great Depression, and the seasonal nature of the farming economy. The 1930s saw vast technological advances in farm machinery that drastically reduced the number of men needed to operate a farm. In 1900, about 125, 000 workers traveled from Minnesota to Washington searching for work, but by the 1930s the numbers of out-of-work men looking for positions had doubled. Farms were becoming corporate industries with the absent owners living in cities hiring managers to run the farms. Migrant workers, nicknamed “bindle-stiffs” as they packed up and followed the seasonal harvests, were severely underpaid, had no union or legal representation, or stable homes. In the later 1930s, violent strikes broke out in several areas leading to some improvements, yet most farm owners continued to treat their migrant workers as disposable. This lifestyle continued until World War II dramatically altered the lives of all Americans as itinerant workers had the option to enlist and the defense industry expanded to insure food rations for citizens and soldiers. Steinbeck’s social experience of living with migrant workers and journalistic knowledge of the economics of itinerant life greatly influenced his novella Of Mice and Men. The very title indicates the central question considering the value of life as it links the smallest burrowing creature’s life to the hopeful pride found in the positive view of Name 3 American manhood. The novella begins with George and Lennie on the run. They are escaping their recent post at a farm called Weeds where Lennie scared a young woman by inappropriately but innocently feeling her dress causing her scream as if she were being physically assaulted. This situation introduces readers to the roving nature of their farm work, Lennie’s inability to control his actions, and the tight protective relationship between these two men. These two protagonists create a symbiotic relationship as they feed each other’s dreams of a owning a farm while making their migrant life bearable. “George and Lennie’s dream is specifically necessitated by and responds directly to the limitations placed on their lives, and their story is meant to illustrate the social conditions which Steinbeck seeks to critique” (Attell para.4). Yet, the stark reality of this rootless, isolated existence always churns within the forefront of George’s mind. He fumes to Lennie: “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. They come to a ranch an’ work up a stake and then they go inta town and blow their stake, and the first thing you know they’re pounding their tail on to some other ranch. They ain’t got nothing to look ahead to” (Steinbeck 13-14). The opening scene foreshadows the undercurrent of violent potential within Lennie as well as illustrates the overall nature of their limited lives. Whether unintentional or deliberate, violence towards animals, including mice, the puppy, and Candy’s dog, throughout the novella establishes an undertone of violence that prefigures the violence that the humans will inevitably commit against one another. “Lennie’s killing of mice and later his killing of the puppy set up a motif of action, a Name 4 pattern, which the reader expects to be carried out again” (Lisca para. 6). One of the most difficult scenes in the novella centers on the cruel Carlson euthanizing Candy’s dog. Carlson, a trained mechanic who feels secure within his stable position on the farm, pushes the itinerant works around. Enforcing alienation and isolation, he shows no respect for other workers and absolutely shows no desire to create a harmonious brotherhood with them. Just like the vengeful Curley will later indirectly pressure George to mercifully kill the mentally challenged Lennie, Carlson pressures the one-armed Candy to kill his dog. Carlson prods the unwilling Candy telling the others: “[That dog] got no teeth, damn near blind, can’t eat. Candy feeds him milk. He can’t chew nothing else” (Steinbeck 36). The all-encompassing violence towards animals prefigures the crushing of anyone who dares to dream or attempts to connect with another creature or human being. Just as Candy is likened to worthless old mut, all the itinerant men live with an underlying sense of fear of their own extendable nature at the mercy of the farm managers. The killing of Candy’s innocent dog and his companion heralds George’s killing of the innocent Lennie who acts as his companion in this ruthless world. Lennie’s mangling of Curley’s hand demonstrates the extreme complexity of Steinbeck’s characters as each action foreshadows the inevitable death of each person’s hope for a better life. At first glance, Curley may appear like an archetypal villain, yet he too dreams of being respected as a son, a boss, and a husband. “Curly, the arrogant but inept Boss’s son…(represents a) man who has the position and the authority (but) is not a true leader” (Scarseth para. 16). His insecure machismo prods him shout at Lennie, Name 5 “Come on, ya big bastard. Get up on your feet. No big son-of-bitch is gonna laugh at me. I’ll show ya who’s yella” (Steinbeck 62). Afraid he may be considered a coward, Curley physically provokes Lennie who, with George’s permission, strikes back crushing Curley’s hand—a blow that gets revenge on Curley’s rudeness towards his workers but will affect the rest of his life. This scene simultaneously plants and foreshadows Curley’s motivation to seek a greater revenge on the hapless Lennie when the opportunity later presents itself as powerful tragic forces converge over these four days. This scene also deepens George’s sense of responsibility for caring for Lennie’s actions because he gave Lennie permission to fight back against Curley. Readers sense that Lennie is a gift and a burden to George, who is at heart a good man. Throughout the story, George has protected and guided Lennie, yet now readers wonder about the extent of Lennie’s destructive capabilities and the encircling presence of Curley’s provocative wife. As the novella climaxes in Lennie’s inadvertent murder of Curley’s wife, Steinbeck has provided such subtle, yet undeniable foreshadowing as to make this scene shocking, yet believable. Unnamed, Curley’s wife indicates how this unviable, itinerant lifestyle isolates people. As Curley’s trophy wife who naively believes she can still make it in Hollywood “pitchurs,” she seems to desire sexual attention to gratify herself, yet this world punishes her completely for her attempt at physical companionship (Steinbeck 89). “All these men are afraid of Curley’s wife, afraid and aware that her innocent animal appeal may lead them into temptation and trouble” (Scarseth para. 24). Although some feminists deride her nameless characterization, it is also possible to understand her Name 6 through the men’s eyes alone—she represents everything they want, a stable and loving home—yet cannot have. “Of Mice and Men has the classic situation/complication/twist/ and/resolution plot structure uncluttered by diversions, distractions, or subplots. There is an inevitableness, a starkness that makes the point of the story unavoidable” (Scarseth para. 11) The murder of Curley’s wife completes the train of foreshadowing to drive the plot on towards Lennie’s death. As Lennie crosses the line from inappropriately touching women’s dresses, accidentally killing animals, and fighting with men who provoke him to actually committing unintentional murder, George sees that Lennie’s time is over. Curley, who did not even show love or respect to his wife, is not hunting Lennie to turn him over to a prison hospital or to the legal system; he will terrify and torture him to soother and re-assert his own masculine ego symbolized by his crushed hand. George’s mercy killing of Lennie, who dies reciting his prayer-dream of his idealistic farm filled with soft rabbits, demonstrates the brotherhood between these two men and their “human potential for tragic nobility” (Scarseth para.4). As Candy taught George that Candy should have taken responsibility for euthanizing his dog, George maintains his loyalty to Lennie protecting him from the pain of being lynched. Foreshadowed throughout the novel, the innocent Lennie has pushed past the boundary and can no longer be allowed to live within this society. In conclusion, just like Candy’s dog, Lennie is euthanized by George, who acts out of compassion honoring the commitment he made long ago to Lennie’s aunt. Steinbeck’s novella clearly proves the title’s theme taken from a Robert Burns poem, Name 7 “The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft a-glae” meaning humans can strive but overwhelming forces overpower even the best of intentions. In many ways, Lennie’s death represents the end of George’s dream of owning a farm. The two men had established a ritual of telling the story and bolstering each other with this fantasy. Finding a sense of physical place would allow them an emotional place where their human dignity and value could be realized, where Lennie could perhaps be taught how to treat animals safely, and where George could perhaps evolve from being Lennie’s caretaker into being his own man. While Lennie loses his life, George ends the novella in an emotionally precarious situation—he has lost his goal and the person who helped him believe in its possibility. Ultimately, Steinbeck leaves readers crushed by the bitter ending for these characters--some are dead and others have been forcefully reminded just how brutal this world can treat people. Steinbeck’s naturalist fiction works as a timeless piece of Literature, yet it also stirs modern readers to question workers’ and human rights within America where issues of Latin American migrant workers headline newspapers. Also, modern readers can overlap the treatment of these itinerant workers with the plight of millions of workers toiling in developing, post-colonial nations the world over. Name 8 Works Cited: Attell, Kevin. Themes and Concerns of Social Realism in Of Mice and Men. Novels for Students. Los Angeles: Gale, 1997. Print. Lisca, Peter. “Motif and Pattern in Of Mice and Men.” Modern Fiction Studies. Winter 1956-57. 228-234. Print. “John Steinbeck.” Norton Anthology American Literature Volume D. Ed. Nina Baym. 7th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007. 2049. Print. "Of Mice and Men: Introduction." Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 7 May 2011. . Scarseth, Thomas. A Teachable Good Book: Of Mice and Men. Censored Books: Critical Viewpoints. Ed. Nicholas J. Karloides, Lee Burress, and John M. Kean. Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1991. 388-394. Print. Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. New York: Penguin Books. 1993. Print. 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