Examples Of Disability In Of Mice And Men

Throughout the novel, Lennie is put to the test against obstacles he has to overcome; he always turns to George for the right answer. Lennie trusts George to make the right decision for him. When Curley was fighting Lennie, Lennie was covering his face with his hand until George screams, “Get ‘im, Lennie” and instantly Lennie puts his hand on Curley and breaks the bones in his hand (Steinbeck 63). Lennie can’t think for himself and never truly means to be mean. Lennie doesn’t know how to control his own body, “He was so little… I was jus’ playin’ with him…an’ he made like he’s gonna bite me…an’ I made like I was gonna smack him… an’…an’ I done it. An’ then he was dead” (Steinbeck 87). In other words, it foreshadows that he is too strong for his own mind and that something potentially worse could happen. Sadly, George made the right decision for Lennie by killing him to prevent future suffering and

The author, Steinbeck, uses his own personal experience to “serve as an inspiration…” (Johnson 1) when writing this particular story. His past experiences also helped him for the future. Lennie, of all characters, is the least dynamic. He undergoes a significant amount of change and develops throughout the story. He has been isolated with George throughout his life. His sole purpose in life is to make George happy and to own a farm with George and take care of the soft rabbits. Lennie is the most innocent and defenseless. He also is the largest and strongest, which does not help in certain situations. Lennie is the protagonist in the story. He gains the readers sympathy by his intellectual disability and helplessness. Lennie murders things by accident such as the mouse in his pocket, the puppy and Curley’s wife. He enjoys the touch of and somehow uses those murders and experiences to scare him from doing it again. George’s opinion means the most to him.

Lennie is a big and a powerful man. Steinbeck makes it clear that he is a very good worker and should not be made mad at all. But he also is not that smart, which makes him dumb to act when he is supposed to fight or not fight. On page 39 in “Of Mice and Men” Steinbeck wrote, “There ain’t nobody can keep up with him. God awmighty I never seen such a strong guy.” Lennie is a very strong guy that nearly killed one of the other workers bucking barley because he was too fast. Later in the novel Lennie breaks all of the bones in Curly's hand. This shows how Lennie is a very strong person that can kill people very easily.

In the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, George and Lennie learn to travel and experience the world together as they take on a new job working on a ranch in central California "bucking barley" for the ranch owner and his son. Lennie, not being able to control his actions, hurts too many people and things and men were chasing after the two, so George decides to take action and shoot Lennie. Although some may disagree, George did the right thing by shooting Lennie because he could not have avoided hurting someone else in the future, he could not eventually learn that the things he did were wrong due to his disability, and he could not learn to eventually control his own strength.

In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck uses the symbolism of mice to strengthen the idea that Lennie does not understand his own strength. Lennie is not aware of how physically strong he is due to his mental disability. Lennie likes petting soft things hence why he likes to have pet mice and dreams of tending rabbits. Lennie doesn’t realize the major difference between his strength and the mouse’s strength when he says, “‘they bit my fingers and I pinched their heads a little and then they was dead―because they was so little’” (10). This quote illustrates the innocence of the mice, but also the inability of the mice to protect themselves against Lennie’s physical strength. Prior to Lennie saying this, Steinbeck shows Lennie’s innocence as well

“Man is the unnatural animal, the rebel child of nature”, H. G. Wells. Throughout Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, the majority of the characters are given bestial qualities, such as cold-heartedness and a very uncompassionate mentality. Unlike the others, Lennie and George seem to be compassionate and caring towards one another. The most prominent difference is how Lennie’s disability gives him a childlikeness and an ability to see the world without judgement and fear. More suitably, Lennie seems to have a very strong connection with nature, he is consistently around animals whether they are dead or alive. Because Lennie has a learning disability, he would normally be mistreated and not be able to be hired to work in this time period but, he

Lennie is rejected by everyone at the ranch, except George, because of his mental disability (“Of Mice and Men” 248). People with a mental disability are often looked down upon in society. Lennie is a very large, strong man, however, people on the ranch don't believe he is a good worker because of his disability. Although Lennie has a mental disability, he has the strength to do a lot of the ranch work and is a very good worker. The men on the ranch do not realize the strength that Lennie has until he breaks Curley’s hand and ends up killing Curley’s wife. Having a disability does not imply that the individuals aren’t skilled in different areas. Handicapped by his lack of adult intelligence, Lennie is doomed in the world of a migrant worker (“Of Mice and Men” 246). He is not able to think as highly as an average adult and often times does not make the best decisions. In the novel, we are able to see the strength that Lennie has and how he is not able to control it when Steinbeck talks about how Lennie killed the mouse, the puppy, Curley’s wife and crushed Curley’s hand. Curley is a small man who tends to pick fights with the bigger men to show his strength. Curley knows about Lennie's lack of intelligence and decides to start hitting him. Lennie doesn’t do anything back until George tells him to fight back. The next punch Curley threw, Lennie caught it and squeezed Curley's hand

Lennie Small; A simple man with a simple mind in a not-so-simple world. Lennie is mentally handicapped, living in the 1930’s during the Great Depression with his friend and caretaker, George. Because Lennie has the mind of a child but the strength and appearance of a 30-year-old man, which often gets him in trouble. He poorly hides the evidence of his wrongdoing, and cannot fully understand the cost of his own actions which ultimately results in his death. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Lennie’s death is foreshadowed in conversations, Lennie’s tendencies of petting soft things too roughly, and events that happen on the ranch and in his past

Lennie is physically powerful. He is a big guy, with so much strength that he literally doesn't know he has it. Time after time he is told by George to be careful and to not hurt anything, Lennie is confused by this sometimes because he doesn’t know how strong he is and what problems he can cause. When he gets himself in tough situations, he still is unsure of what he did and how. “”Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice. I didn’t bounce you hard”” (85). His strength is so powerful he was able to kill a puppy, just by lightly hitting him for barking. This leads up to him eventually killing Curley’s wife by breaking her neck. Not many people are strong enough to kill a human being with their own bear hands, but Lennie Small

Steinbeck used foreshadowing of this that Lennie doesn’t know how strong he really is. An example of this is from Doc. B when Lennie said “Jus’ wanted to feel that girls dress- jus’ wantes to pet it like it was a mouse”. This shows how when Lennie doesn’t know his real power as he was just petting the dress and the girl started to freakout and Lennie and George had to leave weed so they didn’t get in trouble. You could also see this coming as Lennie killed the puppy.

In the book, Lennie would repeatedly be found petting both mice and dogs, but every time he would end up killing them. Often times he would kill them just because he pet them too hard. When he was little his aunt would give him mice all the time, but he would accidently kill every last one of them. In the book, Slim had a dog that gave birth to nine puppies, which was too much for him to keep so he was willing to give some away. He gave one to Lennie, who went in to the barn almost every day to pet it. One time when he was in the barn, Lennie was petting the dog when it started to bite him. Lennie was afraid so he hit the dog and then “he looked at a little dead puppy that lay in front of him” (Steinbeck 82). Lennie had not only killed the mice, but he also killed the puppy. Lennie killed all of these animals on accident which would foretell that he would kill something else, Curley’s wife, on accident. Next, Lennie was a pretty big man and he was very strong. He often did not know how strong he actually was. In the book, George mentioned to Slim that he had “never seen such a strong guy” (Steinbeck 39). When Lennie goes to work he outworks everyone. He could buck barely better than anyone on the farm because of his strength. Everyone on the farm knows how strong Lennie is, but Lennie does not. Thirdly, Lennie loves to touch soft things and he has for all of his life. For example, he loved to touch mice, dogs, fabric, and hair. One of the times that Lennie was in the barn, Curley’s wife came in. As they began to talk, Lennie brings up the fact that he “like[s] to pet nice things with [his] fingers, sof’ things” (Steinbeck 87). Curley’s wife had soft hair implying that Lennie would want to touch it and due to his inability to let go and his strength he would accidently kill her. Curley’s wife’s death was therefore foreshadowed by Steinbeck in the

This is the story about two men struggling to fulfill the American dream. “Of Mice and Men” is told by John Steinbeck and is set in California in the 1930’s. Many people go through struggles in this novel, some are physical and some are mental. Some of the characters with impairments are Lennie, Crooks, Curley’s wife, George, and Candy. One of the many characters with an impairment in the book is a man called Lennie Small.

While they hold some different viewpoints, “Of Mice and Men” and The Arc are similar because they both discuss the issue of the lives of the disabled. For example, in “Of Mice and Men”, despite Candy’s reluctance, Carlson killed Candy’s dog because it is old, injured, and no longer serves its purpose. This event is important because Candy’s dog symbolizes not only Lennie with his disability, but anybody who grows old and outlived their purpose. Meanwhile, The Arc believes that “people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are entitled to the respect, dignity, equality, safety, and security accorded to other members of society, and are equal before the law.” Now while they are talking about humans and not dogs, these morals can still

In the beginning of the novella, Lennie is portrayed as innocent and dependent on George. When Lennie had a mouse and George asked for it, Steinbeck describes Lennie’s reaction

. . Lennie’s so scared all he can think to do is hold on” (Steinbeck 41). Lennie did not know what he was doing wrong, and strangers like the girl who was wearing the red dress do not know him or his ‘disability’. George had explained that the girl was scared because she thought Lennie was trying to attack her, and after George finally made Lennie release his grip on the dress, they were driven to run and hide so neither of them would get caught and sent to jail. Children tend to be particularly tactile at a young age, they love to reach out and grab a hold of items that peak their interest, considering they truly do not know any better. George even says that as well, “He’s jes’ like a kid. There ain’t no more harm in him than a kid neither, except he’s so strong” (Steinbeck 43). Lennie does not realize that he is so strong either, so as he goes about his life he ends up scaring people, or hurting them, and hurting animals as well, without realizing why. Eventually, Lennie does learn that what he does is wrong, but he still does not know what exactly happens to cause his wrongdoing. For example, just like Steinbeck explains at the beginning of the book how he accidentally kills mice as a result of wanting to pet them, as he does not recognize his own strength. He accidentally repeated his past mistakes, and injured a young pup as well, “Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice . . . I di’n’t