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Comparison Of Lennie In Of Mice And Men

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Most people probably couldn't relate to the character Lennie Small from Steinbeck's novel, Of Mice and Men. He is a very unique and challenged person in the novel. He is seen as obsessive, childish, and very reliant on George. While examining the character Lennie, I have come to the conclusion that we have a great deal of similarities and differences.
When I first read Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”, I didn’t feel any connection with the character Lennie. The first description the reader gets of Lennie is “...a huge man, shapeless of face, with large shapeless eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders, and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws” (Steinbeck 4). However, as I continued to read I realized that …show more content…

Although Lennie and I have vast similarities, we still have many differences. The most obvious difference is that he is a man and I am a women. A more subtle difference is how Lennie is a man, yet he is still treated like a child. Where on the contrary, I was pushed to grow up at a young age. Towards the beginning of the book there is a scene where George and Lennie are fighting over a dead mouse. George says “Come on. Give it to me. You ain’t puttin’ nothing over on me.”... “You know Goddamn well what I want. I want that mouse.” Then Lennie slowly reaches into his pocket and pulls out the dead mouse. While on the verge of crying Lennie says “I don’t know why I can’t keep it. It ain’t nobody’s mouse. I didn’t steal it…” (Steinbeck 10). This is an argument the reader could imagine a young boy and his father having, not two grown men. Yet this is a common theme in the novel. George is portrayed as a strict father, and Lennie is portrayed as a young boy. I could not relate to this at all while reading the novel. Once I reached the age where I could start taking care of myself, my parents role in my life started to decline, and I learned to become self sufficient.
One of the major themes of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men is the theme of loneliness. One would think that Lennie would be the most lonely out of all the other characters. He has been called crazy and chastised by almost all the characters, is put down by George constantly, and has some

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