A Comparison Of Power In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

In the novella Of Mice and Men, the author Steinbeck expresses how power tangles around main characters. Both power and powerless are able to create positive and negative outcomes. There are Lennie Small and George Milton who show no restraint when it comes to power, Curley who suffers because of his greediness, and Slim who is in much better circumstance than all others due to his wisdom to withstand himself. Steinbeck demonstrates how those who do not realize they have to restrain themselves towards power above their ability will be more destructive than those who do.

Power is presented through characters by using a long description of what the character is like, describing their appearance, positive points and negative points. The power of the character is presented by demonstrating their dominance or submissiveness over another character through their actions, speech and the way they behave around them, and if they change their behaviour around other people, for example Curley acts as if he’s the best in the world at everything around Lennie because he tries to beat him up but he doesn’t act that way towards Slim, who is more dominant and powerful than him in terms of dominance, but not in terms of ranch hierarchy.

Curley shows how he uses his strength and position to achieve his desire to dominate the working men that he considers to be a threat due to their size; Lennie being a clear example. It is due to Curley’s lack of height that his desire for dominance and control derives from.

Throughout an individual’s life, one is bound to encounter domination against others. There are different ways to show power; physically, economically, intellectually, etc. However, power can be used positively or negatively. In the novel, Of Mice and Men, Lennie has the capability to use his strength to gain power. Next, Curley’s wife uses her gender to control men and takes advantage of her role as her husband’s wife to make the workers fear to lose their job. Finally, Curley has the advantage to use his father’s status on the ranch to make himself seem “untouchable”. Lennie, Curley’s wife, and Curley all have power, but when he or she gets directly or indirectly belittled, the character tends to use their own power to disempower others.

Power is defined as “the possession of control or command over others; authority...” (Dictionary.com), and all people have power, whether they notice it or not. Though some employ their power for respectable reasons, often times power is not used in honorable ways. The matter of abuse of authority is prevalent in the story Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Steinbeck illustrates that those who have power abuse it exceedingly often, as shown by Curley attacking countless others, including Lennie, a mentally disabled man, Curley’s wife mistreating the men of the ranch, and Curley’s wife making demeaning comments about Crooks, the African American stable buck.

In the novella Of Mice and Men, the author John Steinbeck argues that earned power is more respected than inherited power. Throughout the story, a power hierarchy is established among the characters. The top of the hierarchy is mostly made up of characters with inherited power, like Curley. Curley is the boss’s son, and gets his power because his father owns the ranch: “Don’t tell Curley I said none of this. He’d slough me. He just don’t give a dam. Won’t ever get canned ‘cause his old man’s the boss” (27). Since Curley has direct power from the most important figure on the ranch, he has the ability to boss around the workers with no consequences. He takes advantage of this power, and the workers cannot retaliate otherwise, they will get

The novel “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck, shows that imbalances of power in one’s society can lead to varying conflicts within said society. In the time that this takes place, the Great Depression that is, money is everything. That which has money has power. Curley has money being the boss’ son and therefore more power. Curley treats others however he wants because of the imbalance of power tipping towards him. Lennie and Curley have an imbalance of physical and social power. When they brawl, Lennie has more physical power yet Curley has more power over the final outcome which in turn leads to a conflict. Eventually, one finds that Lennie himself has an imbalance of power with himself which causes a great conflict in the story.

In his 1937 novel, Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck demonstrated the importance of power through his characters by using discrimination, agism, and sexism. Crooks, the male Black-American stable buck, demonstrated power over Lennie, who had a mental disability. Because Crooks showed power over a mentally challenged person, it showed that he was feeling anger and loneliness. Even though Crooks is a Black-American, he showed that he had power over Lennie because of his wit. The location of where Crooks lives demonstrates that there is an emphasis of power of racial segregation.

How Steinbeck Uses Two of His Characters to Explore the Role of Power in Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

In his novel Of Mice and Men, author John Steinbeck uses characters, Lennie, Curley’s wife, Crooks, and Candy to develop the theme that those who lack power tend to take power away from others.

In Of Mice and Men characters such as Curley’s wife and Curley abuse their power over characters such as Crooks or Lennie, who face oppression, due to their racial identity or status. For example, Curley’s Wife abuses her power over Crooks. Curley’s wife says to Crooks, “You know what I could do to you if you open your trap? I could get you strung up on a tree so easily it ain’t even funny”. Curley’s wife is abusing her power over Crooks because, she is white, and Crooks is black. She already has racial power over him, so she can threaten to kill Crooks after he talks to her in a rude way, yet Crooks cannot threaten to kill her because Curley’s wife has more power over him. Another example of a character abusing their power is Curley. After

The idea of gaining power is an important aspect for both characters and people in reality. The pursuit of power can be the fuel for dreams, goals, and development in both characters and real people. This idea is present throughout the novel Of Mice and Men and plays an important role in the development of the characters. In the book ,written by John Steinbeck, two migrant workers travel to a ranch in California in hopes of getting money to carry out their dream, and at the ranch many people they see have hopes of asserting their dominance on people they view as inferior, but their actual social value makes these attempts pointless. Even though many people strive to assert power and control in their lives, their circumstances often make that

This quotation is part of a conversation between Crooks and Lennie. Lennie enters Crooks’ cabin uninvitedly and Crooks explains how Lennie has no right to be in his room, “You got no right to come in my room. This here’s my room. Nobody ain't got any right in here but me.”

In our society it is seen that way that the strong ones are always the ones that survive and the weaks are left behind and they think that they aren't capable of doing anything that the strong ones do. Also the weak ones are alway made fun of or treated badly because they aren't as strong as other people. it helped me explain these themes because in the story Lennie has always been the weak one and he would suffer because they wouldn't let him work in the ranch he was always left behind

The novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck takes place in a remote Californian town, focusing in on the lives of two lonely migrant laborers from Weeds. This novel introduces a variety of characters all facing generally the same issue; isolation. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck illustrates to his readers that when people are lonely, it can affect their way of life and lead to desperate actions.