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Of Mice And Men Sociology Essay

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Reading life is filled with many different values. It can entertain and lead the reader to imagine wonderful things that give joy and happiness. Reading can teach lessons about beliefs of society and lead the reader to believe in things that they never knew possible. It can also lead to the reality of society and the horrors of it. That is why the purpose of this essay is to explain and question some of the aspects of Of Mice and Men to high school students. This essay will explain the sociological value of this novel and will show that everyone can learn from this book through the characters of Curly’s wife and Lennie. “She is to him a thing, a possession, a sex-object and a status symbol.” (Scarseth). In many men’s eyes this is the definition of a woman. A toy to play around with, …show more content…

Lennie throughout the story is portrayed as this friendly giant character. He ” A huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, and wide, sloping shoulders,” (2) who also has a gentle, soft heart. At times though that soft heart turns to stone because of his mental health issues. Even though the mental issues were never addressed they were very strongly described throughout the story like when George described him saying “He’s dumb as hell.” (19). Because of his mental problems, Lennie does not understand a lot of the why’s of the story. Why do the men not talk to Curly’s wife? Why does everybody leave her to her lonesome? As Lennie says in the story “George says I ain’t to have nothing to do with you- talk to you or nothing.”(43). Ignoring that, Lennie is hesitant to talk to Curly’s wife but gives in because he see’s the loneliness in her. This completely throws away the societal hierarchy in the story of man v.s. woman and rich v.s. poor. This is all because Lennie was able to feel true sympathy for Curly’s wife and because of this Lennie shows and expresses sociological value in the

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