Naturalistic Themes 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.

Every day, people are faced with responsibility. Some thrive under the pressure while others crumble. Responsibility is a sign of independence. Teenagers with greater amounts of responsibility feel freedom from their parents. In the same case, too much responsibility can put more stress on that freedom-seeking teen and can have devastating effects. John Steinbeck shows the theme that in life, responsibility is best taken in moderation in his novel Of Mice and Men.

In Of Mice and Men, the author John Steinbeck uses an allusion to a Robert Burns poem. The allusion is meaningful to the novel by being the base for the main idea and adding to the use of foreshadowing. The main idea of the poem that is also conveyed in the novel is that even the most well-thought out plans can fail. The allusion shows parallelism between Lennie to a mouse and George to a farmer. Both Lennie and the mouse are simple minded and do not have to worry about the past, future, or mistakes. While, George and the farmer envy the mouse for their simplicity. The allusion also helps to make the friendship between the main characters more solid, “But you get used to goin’ around with a guy an’ you can’t get rid of him”(41). The allusion deepens the relationship between George and Lennie. The poem does some foreshadowing as well, and gives a hint as to

John Steinbeck 's novel Of Mice and Men is a famous Naturalist work in American literature. Various elements of Naturalism is exhibited in this novel through its character types and story plot. Charles Darwin, an English Naturalist proposed a theory called natural selection, meaning that nature selects the best adapted varieties to survive and reproduce. Darwin also identified this theory as survival of the fittest. Steinbeck incorporated this belief of natural selection in many instances throughout Of Mice and Men using characters and their circumstances. One character named Candy has an injury and is old in age. They were leading factors in his fear of being unemployed. His dog’s old age and uselessness also resulted in its death.

“So you forgot that awready, did you? I gotta tell you again , do I ? Jesus christ, you're a crazy bastard!” George says (4-5). You can infer that the two characters have some issues with each other. In Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck shows the weaknesses that most of the characters have and the trials they face with those weaknesses. The characters such as Lennie, Crooks and Candy all have something that happens to them in the story that brings out their weaknesses. John Steinbeck portrays the effects that weak people reveal through the characters Lennie, Crooks and Candy.

The characters in of Mice and Men can be compared to real people from Steinbeck’s life. During Steinbeck’s days of being a ranch hand, he was surrounded by workers that represent George and Lennie. “Two migrant ranch hands, George and the mentally challenged Lennie, and their simple yet ultimately thwarted dream of owning their own land.” (“John Steinbeck”). All their lives they had jumped from job to job because of Lennie’s disability. They had experienced several difficulties due to Lennie’s inability to control himself, so their dream of a farm full of rabbits and other animals had seemed to be nothing more than a dream. Other people within the story had also been in direct relation to those of his personal life.

The long, hard war of human equality in society, has been a war since the beginning of civilization. The Great Depression, a tragic time in America’s history, reflects American determination, but also social inequality. In the fiction novella, Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck uses symbolism and characterization to address ableism and sexism in society. Steinbeck addresses these flaws in society in an attempt to ultimately bring awareness these riffs before society falls.

One motif in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is survival of the fittest, or that the strongest survive and the weak perish. The motif is present as early as page 9, when Lennie, who is described as George’s “huge companion” (3) kills a mouse. George mentions that Lennie “broke [the mouse] pettin’ it” (9), and Lennie soon after mentions that the mice he was given would always end up “dead – because they was so little” (10). This scene shows how the “huge” Lennie always kills the “little”

The 1785 poem To a Mouse by Robert Burns inspired the title of John Steinbeck’s 1937 novella Of Mice and Men. These two texts carry common theme, allowing clear similarities to be drawn between them.

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.

In life human nature can be known to be thought of as a high quality and/or low quality. Naturally, human nature is there without thought about what it actually is. In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, the author sprinkles clues and evidence of how human nature was and still is today. The themes that Steinbeck used throughout the novel were, for example friendship, loneliness, and weak vs. strong.

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.

Authors find inspiration from many other sources that include people, places, and other pieces of literature. John Steinbeck, the author of Of Mice and Men, found inspiration from Robert Burns poem To a Mouse, and the two pieces of writing draw multiple similarities between the two. Of Mice & Men shares multiple similarities of the poem To a Mouse in more ways than one due to the characteristics shared between the two main characters from each piece of literature, as well as the relationship of the circumstances that each author puts their protagonists into.

Of Mice and Men is a famous novel by John Steinbeck. He gets his title from another famous poem named To A Mouse by Robert Burns. The poem is about a mouse that has built a nest. The narrator accidentally plows through his nest which, to the mouse, is like a home. In the beginning the narrator is telling the mouse that he shouldn’t run away like that because he would feel like he has to go after him. After that, he tells him that he is sorry that other people have given the mouse a reason to be scared of him. An example of why he should be scared would be the mouse traps we set up to kill them. The mouse has a reason to be scared and the narrator is starting to understand that. In the poem it says, “It’s feeble walls the winds are scattering! And nothing now, to build a

John Steinbeck wrote ‘Of Mice and Men’ to show how hard life was for migrant ranch workers during the time of the Great Depression and how they were often exploited by their employers. In showing how George and Lennie’s dream of owning their own piece of land did not come true, Steinbeck explores a wider theme, criticising the idea of the American Dream. The American Dream tells people that there is ‘opportunity for each... regardless of the fortuitous circumstance of birth and position. Steinbeck criticises this as these ranch workers were given few opportunities. Settings play a very important part in the novel as they pinpoint clear times and places giving a sense of realism to the story, but they are also used to create atmosphere.