Light And Dark Symbolism In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

“Wha’s the matter with me?’ she cried. ‘Ain’t I got a right to talk to nobody? Whatta they think I am, anyways?” (Steinbeck 87) In the novella Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Curley’s wife is discriminated against because she is a woman living in the 1930s when few females could live economically independent of men. By choosing not to name her, Steinbeck reinforces her insignificance on the ranch and her dependence on Curley. While a misfortunate victim of isolation, Curley’s wife exerts unexpected power attempting to mask her pain.

Do you think that colors can represent certain things, such as hope, hopelessness, and loneliness? And, do you believe that colors can represent books? Well, I do because the color white represents the book Of Mice & Men because white represents hope, hopelessness, and loneliness, and those three themes are introduced frequently throughout the book.

When you see colors what do you feel? Different colors have the ability to convey different emotions. For example, red can commonly be associated with anger and blue is often associated with sadness. In the book, Of Mice and Men, many emotions are conveyed, especially by Lennie. Lennie is like a child, trapped in the body of a big, strong man and he experiences many emotions throughout the book, ranging from innocence to loyalty, which are represented by the color, yellow. Yellow is representative of innocence, loyalty, and helplessness, that Lenny experiences throughout the book, Of Mice and Men. From its childlike quality to its warm undertones, I’m going to tell you why.

Without emotion, a novel is merely words on paper; to bring a story to life, the author must create a tone and a mood. Tone refers to an “author’s attitude towards the subjects, characters, or reader,” (Burke 385). In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the tone is sympathetic. Steinbeck shows sympathy towards his characters throughout the novella. Early on, when George wouldn’t allow him to keep a mouse, Lennie “sat down on the ground and hung his head dejectedly,” (Of Mice and Men 9). Steinbeck's word choice tells the reader he has compassion for Lennie. Later on, when Curley’s wife warned Crooks that she could have the stable hand killed, Steinbeck wrote “Crooks had reduced himself to nothing… his voice was toneless,” (Of Mice and Men 81).

In the novel, Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck chooses to use many different and unique symbols in order to help develop characters and to foreshadow upcoming events. The symbols used in this story give it a more effective message and provide a better understanding to what Steinbeck has intended to convey. He uses many different forms of symbolism, some which are objects while some are actual human relationships, in order to make the story more realistic and to give it a more insightful approach.

"Although there was evening brightness showing through the windows of the bunkhouse, inside it was dust". This shows that the light tries to get in but never manages to penetrate the darkness. This is important to the themes of the story because workers' hope for a future farm is just like the light while the cruel reality is like the darkness. Their efforts to realize this plan is just like the light trying to penetrate the darkness, but their dream

Any good detective looks for clues or hints to solve a case. As readers, we act like detectives to put clues together and find out what really happened. Foreshadowing is similar to this because it gives us clues to see what will occur in a future event. In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck uses foreshadowing very often to tell us what could possibly happen. In this book, two men dream to have their own piece of land together, but they can’t buy it because they don't have enough money. The two men set out find a job for money but along the way, many obstacles are thrown at them, and some of them they ca

In the beginning, there is very little light. It is almost dusk, and the speaker describes the smell as “dark” (7). Towards the middle and end there are various lights: lanterns, lamplight, fireflies, lamp (9, 11, 13, 20). This change over time depicts the storyteller’s significance to the speaker, because she brought enlightenment to his life. In this poem, light is a metaphor for knowledge, while darkness is a metaphor for ignorance. At the end, the old wise storyteller, who is the embodiment of wisdom, “was the lamplight” (20). In contrast, the two boys, who are young and ignorant, are “in one shadow” (21). The juxtaposition of light with darkness shows that the speaker and storyteller are opposites in their insight. Additionally, it is strange that she is a light before them, yet they are still shadowed. What is blocking the light from them? This metaphor illustrates that it takes time for people to become sage like their elders. As the speaker says, adulthood is “childhood’s aftermath,” which means that the knowledge people gain in childhood will lead them to be wise adults such as the storyteller

The idyllic nature of one’s dream compels them forward, albeit an almost impossible one. The continual use of vivid imagery greatly immerses the reader; the reader could see George and Lennie’s “little house and a couple of acres” (14) and smell “the bacon and the hams” (57). Steinbeck appeals to the senses to show the alluring qualities of their dream. George’s repetitive depictions of their own land shows the importance of their dreams; without it, there would be no plot, no story, no desire to progress. It would be a story of two nondescript men, wandering aimlessly across the vast American west. Steinbeck chooses to incorporate imagery throughout the story to emphasize what the fruits of one’s labor will result in. The dreamlike setting of George and Lennie’s farm shows the impossibility of it, as a place that perfect would not be in the mortal world.

John Steinbeck uses many literary devices in Of Mice and Men to make the book more interesting and to keep the reader hooked. Steinbeck uses imagery to show “The flame of the sunset lifted from the mountain-tops and dusk came into the valley, and a half darkness came in among the willows and the sycamores” to demonstrate that sunset is taking place as well as the darkness is starting to take over(Steinbeck 11). In chapter 6 Steinbeck uses imagery again to set the scene, “Already the sun had left the valley to go climbing up the slopes of the Gabilan mountains” set the final scene of the book, also at the beginning of chapter 1 the scene is sunset and in chapter 6 the scene is sunset as well(Steinbeck 109).

“And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head.” In the book, “ Of Mice and Men ,” by John Steinbeck (13), the author uses so many symbols in his characters and in the background throughout the story. In the book, everything represents symbolism whether it is the characters or the setting of the time and place they are in. The time period in “ OF Mice and Men “ is around the 1930s during the Great Depression. The men and women in the story aren’t very educated by how they talk and pronounce words. The setting is in Salinas Valley, California which is located in Northern California just south of San Francisco.

John Steinbeck, an American novelist, is well-known for his familiar themes of depression and loneliness. He uses these themes throughout a majority of his novels. These themes come from his childhood and growing up during the stock market crash. A reader can see his depiction of his childhood era. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck shows the prominent themes of loneliness, the need for relationships, and the loss of dreams in the 1930s through the novels’ character.

Through the novella, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, the authors use of motifs of Lennie getting in trouble reveals the theme of friendship is an important part to living a fulfilling life. Through the whole book George is helping Lennie get out of sticky situations, but the motif of Lennie getting in trouble ends their friendship in a very tragic way. Toward the end of the book, George had to kill Lennie, his best friend, because there isn’t anyway out of the sticky situation that doesn’t involve Lennie dying. After killing Lennie George was in shock of what he had just done. Steinbeck narrates, “But Carlson was standing over George.

Throughout the novella, Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck’s use of motif reveals the theme that friendship is an important part to living a fulfilling life . Lennie has just run away due to the fear that he would no longer be able to tend the rabbits. He had this fear because he had just killed Curley’s wife and the young pup. So he ran away to the bushes that George had told him to go to in the case of an emergency. George was talking to Lennie even though he knew he had to kill him.

John Steinbeck’s 1949 novella entitled Of Mice and Men uses many significant symbols to convey meanings about the human condition. Such symbols include hands to represent labour, cards to signify chance and taking a risk, and finally, rabbits to suggest ideas about achieving one’s hopes and dreams. Symbols are a key central device in delivering meaning, as they consistently repeated throughout the narrative and are typically associated with the novella’s many characters.