Mental Disability In George Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Lennie is mentally disabled and so always ‘does bad things’, because of this, he constantly depends on George to protect him and get him out of trouble. For example, in Weed, Lennie constantly ‘wants to touch

George takes care of Lennie many ways. George has taken care of Lennie for a long time. George took him under his wing even though he didn’t need to. George genuinely cares for Lennie. He feeds him, makes sure he is safe, also he gives him hope. George is constantly watching Lennie. George is a good friend to Lennie; however, George gets annoyed with Lennie very easily. He does this to make sure he doesn’t get into trouble or lost. He never leaves him by himself. This is shown when Lennie offers to leave, but George tells him “I want you to stay with me Lennie”(Steinbeck 104). George really cares for Lennie.

The problem with Lennie was that he was mentally disabled, back in the 1930's people did not understand things like that, and had no clue about disabled people. Lennie was sweet and loved thing that were soft. Lennie would put himself in very dangerous situations and with disability he lacked the capacity to control himself physically. Lennie did not understand how strong he was and they damage he would do until after the fact. He also shares the dream of having the small farm and tending to his small rabbit hutch. Since Lennie is mentally disabled he depends on George for almost everything. Lennie is like a small child that has to a have a parent nearby always or he will get into

At this point in the novel, we have heard George mention twice that his life would be improved without Lennie. However, George still seems to feel a need to look out for Lennie. That said, he protects Lennie from conflict by explaining to everyone they meet that he is just a “big kid”.

In the book, Lennie is viewed as a very forgetful character. In the book Lennie says, “I forgot again George.” This trait of forgetfulness that Lennie has effects those around him, especially George. At the beginning of the book, George tells Lennie that he would be better off without him because Lennie is the reason why he can’t keep a job. This effects Lennie because despite his best efforts, he finds a way to hurt the ones he cares about. This situation makes readers feel sympathy towards Lennie because he can’t help forgetting everything and it must be very frustrating for not only him, but to George as

Just about anyone can experience mental health problems, this is not something people should be ashamed or embarrassed about and talking about it is so much more beneficial than hiding it. Many people tend to try and hide their mental illness from other people. People tend to do this because having a mental illness can affect someone's job, social life, health, and their image. John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men demonstrates the hardships that come along with having a mental illness and demonstrates the difficulties of maintaining a normal life when society isn’t willing to give you any opportunities.

Disabilities can be mental : everything is in your head; and one of the characters that has mental disabilities is Lennie, society treats him in a harsh ways. When Curley comes into the bunkhouse, and sees that only George answers his questions, he screams to Lennie : “Curley stared levelly at him. ‘Well, nex’ time you answer when you’re spoke to.’ He turned toward the door and walked out, and his elbows were still bent out a little.” Lennie can’t answer Curley because of his mental conditions. Curley doesn’t seem to get it so he treats Lennie very poorly by screaming at him. George is talking about Lennie to Slim : “One day a bunch of guys was standin’ around up on the Sacramento River. I was feelin’ pretty smart. I turns to Lennie and says, ‘Jump in.’ An’ he jumps. Couldn’t swim a stroke. He damn near drowned before we could get him.” This quotation shows that people take advantage of Lennie’s disabilities just to have fun and watch him suffer. It’s not Lennie’s fault if he jumped in the river and people know that, but they still choose to treat him carelessly, and wrongly. In conclusion, we know that Lennie suffers from mental

Lennie's disability is one of the main reasons he struggles in life, but Georges companionship keeps him sound. George gets frustrated often, but tends to give Lennie slack when he makes

George said, ‘His name’s Lennie Small.’” (21). Lennie wouldn’t know how to survive without George. He’s constantly asking George questions about where they are going, or what happened before. He wouldn’t know anything without George. Also, this point helps prove that Lennie has a mental disability.

In the past, mental illness has been misunderstood as nobody knew how to treat it and didn't know how to react to it. In the novella Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck, George Milton and Lennie Small are two ranch workers traveling together looking for a better future. While on their journey, they face hardships. For example, Lennie has a mental disability that makes him depend on George for guidance and protection. Lennie is depicted as a sympathetic character through his mental disability and his childlike personality; Steinbeck is trying to convey that people with mental disabilities have a challenging life and face difficult situations.

George solves most of Lennie’s problems that happens in Weed and on the California ranch. For example, George runs away with Lennie after the “rape” situation in Weed, and even ends up killing him on the California ranch so the other guys will not torture him to death. Lennie does not get to confront his actions or even explain his side of the story. Lennie does not to experience the negative side of his actions, causing him to maintain innocent. If George would have let him experience the effects of his actions, Lennie might have grown as a person. Also, his child-like mind could start to grow

Lennie was left by his family at the beginning of the book. Lennie gets ridiculed by George because he does stupid things and makes very dumb mistakes. Through the historical lens, looking at Lennie is a good thing. There was so much history happening with people with mental disabilities. None of it was good but it was all history nonetheless. People would get sent to mental institutions and were treated very poorly. Most institutions underfed, hurt, and ridiculed man of the people in the institution. Lennie’s disability was that he had a mind of a third grader. He always wanted to touch nice things or have this or that. Throughout the whole book Lennie isn’t directly ridiculed but is ridiculed nonetheless. All these add in to the reason of Lennie’s

Because he can’t learn or control himself or his actions like when he grabbed on the lady’s dress and because George isn’t able to constantly watch over him, he ends up having to die at the end of the story on page 105. During the time period where the story takes place, there were no systems in place to keep Lennie safe and society wasn’t willing to change to help him. Modern systems that could help him is being able to hire someone to watch over care for Lennie when George is unable to. Because George has to watch over him constantly, George constantly loses jobs, loses money, and gets thrown off of ranches because of what Lennie does. He got him and George thrown out of weed as said on page 41 because they didn’t understand that he had a mental disability and assumed that he was a rapist, he wondered into Crooks’ room because he saw light and no one was around on page 67 and Crooks repeatedly called him crazy , he killed a puppy on page 85 because he could not control his own strength, killed curley's wife on page 91 because she tried to talk to him and understand him, and started to hallucinate on page 100 because George wasn’t with him and he was scared.

American linguist and philosopher, Noam Chomsky once stated, “It is quite possible--overwhelmingly probable, one might guess--that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology.” One such novel, is John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, which introduces a rather grim view of the the human condition. Furthermore, Robert Burns obtains a similar perspective of the human condition, expressed in his poem, “To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with an Plough.” In their literature, both Steinbeck and Burns explore the nature and events that make up the human condition.

The Mistreatment of the Disabled Chen Guangcheng, a prominent blind civil rights activist, said, “How a society treats its disabled is the true measure of a civilization.” The topic of disabilities is touched upon many times in the novella Of Mice and Men. John Steinbeck writes masterfully, driving character development forward employing societal paradigms on which to model his alternate world. Because the story is less plot driven than some others, it relies heavily on the presence of literary elements coupled with the exploration of civic themes. In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Steinbeck asserts that the treatment of people with disabilities must change because of the idea that isolation and abuse is unscrupulous.