George Stein grew up in the suburbs of a major East Coast city. Inevitably, every summer between school semesters George likes to work so he can continue he interest-saturated lifestyle which includes showing his girlfriend, Cathy, around to fun events and spending money on his love of hot rods. This semester, after his freshmen year at college, George managed to secure himself a comfortable union job which offers overtime and a paycheck far larger than he could have ever received any previous summer. George’s new role at Eastern Diary situated him on the nightshift team where there were no managers, just a team leader, Paul, who everyone on the shift looked to for direction. Although Paul and the nightshift crew held a sense of responsibility for getting their work done, the visible artifacts of horseplay tended to supersede the overall company’s element of culture which includes the safety of the employees and customers. Their role was to follow the production order of ice cream handed to Paul by the day shift’s superintendent. One night in particular, George found the ice cream production line halted by maggots clogging up the piping. On an occasion in certain bags of ingredients, likely those of which were left and forgotten, maggots would get in. In order to save the company money, finish the shift on time and on order, Paul advised George to release the filters and effectively let the maggots into the ice cream. Staring down the filters of ice cream and
After graduating high school, Duddy finds a job as a waiter at Laurentian Mountains. He leaves his family back home and goes to work to prove that he is capable of making money. He accepts a challenging waiter job to show his uncle that he is as skillful as his brother, Lennie. Most of the employees at Laurentian Mountains are college students, “...first and second year McGill boys” (64), other than Duddy. Most of the college boys come from “more prosperous families and Duddy found it difficult”(64).
In the beginning of Steinbeck’s novella, George and Lennie have set up camp and are starting to cook supper. Lennie annoys George by stating a simple luxury, and George recoils by exclaiming he could “live so easy. [He] could go get job an’ work, an’ no trouble” (11). After an explosion from George, like a
Solidifying the theme of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the protagonist George expresses his significant loneliness despite a strong kinship with his friend Lennie, “’I ain’t got no people… I seen the guys that go around the ranches alone. That ain’t no good’” (41). Published in 1937, amidst the horrific turmoil of the Great Depression, Steinbeck’s novella struck a sensitive chord with readers. Set in the heart of California’s Central Valley, this story follows two men, George and Lennie, as they run from old shadows to a new farm for work. Clinging to the distant dream of owning their own piece of land, the men imagine life outside their present difficulties. Illustrating that life is varied by emotional complexities beyond black and white, George’s longing for companionship and family seep through in conversations with his new co-worker Slim. Despite Lennie’s sheer physical strength, his mental abilities are limited to that of a naïve, innocent, and very young boy; the result is a relationship akin to an uncle and nephew. Lennie, with primal-like behaviors and a gold-fish memory, struggles to adhere to George’s words of wisdom. In the end, tragedy strikes them both as George is forced to kill Lennie due to an accident with the son of the landowner’s wife – a woman who looks for trouble at the onset. Consequently, George’s state of loneliness is bequeathed to a new level as he begins to imagine life without Lennie in tow.
An interesting passage is, “I have nothing to say of my life during this period. It no longer mattered. After my father’s death, nothing could touch me anymore” (Wiesel 82).
John Steinbeck’s landmark novel Of Mice and Men is perhaps best known for its revolutionary telling of two characters that are very different, but have come to rely on each other to survive during the Great Depression. The two characters are men named George and Lenny. George is somewhat of an average fellow who has no real special skills or attributes. Lenny is large and abnormally strong, but unfortunately has the mind of a child. Lennie looks up to George as if he were a role model. This statement is best supported in the book; “Lennie, who had been watching, imitated George exactly. He pushed himself back, drew up his knees, embraced them, looked over to George to see whether he had it just right. He pulled his hat down a little more over his eyes, the way George's hat was” (Steinbeck). Both characters help each other find work and save the money they earn to purchase a farm together. Their plans keep getting delayed due to Lenny’s habit of getting into serious trouble. George and Lenny are forced to flee the towns that Lenny has gotten in trouble in and continually move to other cities to find jobs. Of Mice and Men has been praised by readers everywhere and is hailed as a modern classic. Of Mice and Men’s success is usually said to be a result of the complex and emotional bond between the two main characters. Many readers forget about the supporting characters that help or hurt George and Lenny during their story. The minor characters in the story each have their own
During the early years of the Great Depression, hundreds of thousands of American workers became out of work and began to travel across the country, in search of work, and the fabled American Dream. John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, a historical fiction piece, follows the struggles of two such American workers, on their journey through the tumultuous era of the Great Depression. However the novel’s message comes from the struggles of the two main characters, George and Lenny, and the actions they must take to overcome the obstacles in front of them. Steinbeck’s purpose for writing the novel was to express his views on the American Dream and express his experiences through the characters he creates. The messages that Steinbeck conveys through his novel are how impossible it truly is to achieve the American Dream, and how it is the nature of man to prey on the weak; this message adding to the impossibility of the American dream, men making it impossible for their fellow man to succeed.
John Steinback’s Of Mice and Men is a book that describes the chase of the American Dream. Although achieving the American Dream is a great desire for all, seldom does it actually come true. George and Lennie, the two main characters in the book, have a goal of pursuing their version of the American Dream, as do many other characters. However, due to relationships and other conflicts, that dream is not achieved.
What do Steinbeck’s first description of George and Lennie tell us about their characters? Discuss this in the regards to the role/relationship of Itinerant workers in the 1930’s Great Depression:
In the late 1930’s novel, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck follows the lives of two men and how they live on one another to endure the hardships nurtured from the Great Depression. George and Lennie, the main characters, venture together along the rolling hills of the western United States, looking out for one another and being there for each other even in the hardest times looking for work to pursue their lifetime dream. Lennie, a strong bold man and a hard worker, is handicapped with a mental disability while George, on the other hand, is a slim, but strong man who has taken care of Lennie ever since his Aunt Clara had perished. Both the men have big dreams of living on a beautiful farm together and raising farm animals such as chickens,
Decree of May 27th ordered from June 7th every Jew of the occupied zone, older than six years of age should wear a yellow star on clothes' left side, the word Jew in black letters.
achieved through hard work. Unfortunately, George and Lenny do not fulfill their American Dream; but they, and the readers, learn that a better life can be attained when given the opportunity.
From what I gathered from the text above, I find that the descriptions of George and Lennie are foreshadowing how they act before they do so. I could picture George just the way the author describes. From the description it seems like he’s never at rest and always moving around to find his way through life; this is shown when the author makes George say “I got you! You can’t keep a job and you lose be ever’ job I get. Jus’ keep me shovin’ all over the country all the time.” (Steinbeck 11). On the other hand. Lennie seems like he’s a bit clumsy by the way the way Steinbeck says “... and he
Together they have a dream to save up enough to own a farm where George is his own boss and Lennie can have animal to feed and pet. But the failure of their dream is followed by many ironic twists. In this essay, I will be discussing the main issues Steinback raised through the novel about that lifestyle that revolved around ranchmen in the early 1930’s. The main
Lennie does not learn from his actions, thus becoming monotonous with his ways. George mirrors the cycle of every other migrant worker. As he and Lennie try to reach their goal of living the American dream, they go through the ongoing sequence of working, receiving their pay, finding new work, and trying to achieve the dream of having their own farm. The two are stuck in their own repetitive nature showing how the cycle may
As the story progresses the reader is told that George has to work the fields because he’s the oldest, while his younger brothers and sisters get to go to school and learn to read and write. George lives a life of working very hard and getting paid very little but his motto is: