‘Of Mice and Men’ shows how factors beyond the characters’ control prevent them from leading fulfilling lives Essay

John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ is set, and was written in the time of The Great Depression, 1929. During The Great Depression there were as many as fifteen million people, in the United States of America alone, left unemployed and with no way to feed their families. The Great Depression was caused by the Wall Street crash. The Wall Street Crash, when stocks and shares plummeted, resulted in America as a world trading country loosing gargantuan amounts money due to the many of the large companies of America going bankrupt. Because the companies went bankrupt they could no longer afford to pay any workers, this meant that they lost their jobs. Even the farms in the country could not stay running because of the Dust Bowl effect, this is when there is prolonged drought and the earth becomes like dust, entirely unsuitable to grow anything in. With a vast amount of the nation unemployed, people were desperately searching for work, simply in order to survive. When the idea came about that people could go and work the land in California, people jumped at the chance despite the appalling pay. The cruel thing is that the employers in California had paid their original workers more than they paid the migrant workers, and the migrant workers only worked because they were so desperate. The employers took advantage of their situation for their own benefit. It was very much every man for himself in that time, though in this novel there is an exception, Lennie and George, who for Steinbeck are the stereotypical migrant workers. I believe George to be living a fulfilled life within the dream he shares with Lennie and, later on in the novel Candy: the popular American dream of the period, to own a piece of land and be entirely self-sufficient from that land. The reason I think this is because George is constantly saying things such as â€Å"we’ll do her†, â€Å"we’ll fix up that little old place an’ we’ll go live there†, this shows that they are living in metaphoric clouds (their dream), a far nicer place than reality, Lennie and George seam to be willing to live through anything just to achieve it. The fact that George lives for a dream, one that he truly didn’t believe would happen, â€Å"Jesus Christ! I bet we could swing her!† this also shows that now George actually believes in himself it will happen, George would have no reason to dream if he was content in reality. Whilst living a content life inside the sanction of his dream, it is clear that he is not content in reality otherwise he would have no cause to dream of a better place. Another reason for George not being content could be that he had been burdened with Lennie all of his life and thus not been able to live his own life and be his own person, George says to Lennie in the novel that he could have a much better life without Lennie â€Å"When I think of the swell time I could have without you, I go nuts. I never get no peace†. This shows that even George feels Lennie as burden some of the time, if he felt this all of the time he could just get rid of Lennie, but he doesn’t. I believe Lennie feels much the same as George in that he lives for the dream also, whenever Lennie is uncomfortable with his surroundings in any way he will ask George to tell the story of the dream to him so that he can escape reality into his imagination, as if in fact the dream is where he wants to be. â€Å"Tell about the house George† Lennie begs.† â€Å"An’ the rabbits†. George has told Lennie that he can tend to the rabbits in their house, because Lennie is very simple this sense of responsibility and his fetish for soft things (the rabbits) provides the perfect attraction for Lennie to the Dream. Because Lennie also has to dream of a better place shows that his life is not being fulfilled on the ranch. If this was not evidence enough Lennie even says â€Å"George, I don’t like it here George†¦Ã¢â‚¬  clearly showing that he does not want to be there. The only woman on the ranch, Curley’s wife, also I believe lives an unfulfilled life because firstly all she is known as throughout the novel is â€Å"Curley’s wife†, making he sound like a possession of Curley’s. This says a lot about the period in which this novel was written, women were treated as inferior beings at this time, and I personally find it hard to see how you could live a fulfilled life when you are being put down constantly. The men on the ranch also have very dim views on her such as George’s opinion of her, â€Å"I don’t care what she says and what she does. I seen ’em poison before, but I never seen no piece of jailbait worse than her†, not only does this starve her for attention it puts her down also. â€Å"Curley’s wife also has a dream, a dream of becoming famous, as she tells Lennie â€Å"He was gonna put me in the movies†, showing that she cannot be content in reality either. Curley’s wife is naturally seeking attention because she has married a man who she hardly ever sees and no one is willing to talk to her: â€Å"Why can’t I talk to you? I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely†, and she believes she should be â€Å"†¦ in the movies†, a place where you will always be in the ‘spotlight’ so to speak, quite the opposite to how she is being treated on the ranch. Candy is the ‘crippled swamper’ on the ranch, and is only able to do menial jobs around the ranch; this offers him no real fulfilment. Despite this Candy’s life amounts to the work he does on the ranch and his dog, these are all he lives for â€Å"When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me.† As time progresses Candy realises that he has not got long left and with his dog, a huge part of his life having just been killed out of sympathy, he asks to join George and Lennie’s dream instead of his life being over once he has been told to leave the ranch â€Å"S’pose I went in with you guys†. In wishing somebody would shoot him when he was told to leave the ranch shows that Candy fears for his future and where he has to go to when he is told to leave. To live your life in fear of your future, not knowing where you are going, not having control of you own life cannot be a very secure and pleasant mental environment to live in; Can dy therefore can’t have a very fulfilled life. Curley is a successful welterweight boxer, but unfortunately didn’t quite make it to the top, instead he is stuck on his father’s ranch, a place where he doesn’t always get the respect/fear he craves, so he has to be rude and hostile in his talking â€Å"Well, nex’ time you answer when you’re spoke to†. This shows that Curley is not living the life he wants to live, thus making his life unfulfilled. Curley has a huge problem with intimidation, meaning bigger people intimidate him easily. He is also obsessed with power and authority: â€Å"Curley’s like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys†, and on a ranch full of large men, he does not always have the security he wants. Curley is in a loveless marriage despite what he thinks he feels for his wife, she refuses to pay him the same attention: â€Å"he ain’t a nice fella†. Curley does not have his life going his way at all, he is stuck living somewhere he does not want to be, without the power he wants and with people he does not like; his father’s ranch. On top of this, he is in a marriage where the only ‘love’ is on his behalf. This all leads me to the conclusion that Curley does not a have a fulfilled life. Crooks is a black stable buck in the novel, and during this time black people were regarded as inferior beings, this leaves Crooks open to much discrimination. Using Crooks as a stereotype, Steinbeck tries to show the relationship between black and white people in America in the 1930’s. Throughout the novel, Crooks is treated with great disrespect, for example he is constantly being referred to as a â€Å"God damn nigger†. Crooks also gets segregated from the rest of the workers, this makes him incredibly lonely, we can tell this from a touching extract between Lennie and Crooks â€Å"Crooks says gently, ‘Maybe you can see now. You got George. You know he’s goin’ to come back. S’pose you didn’t have nobody. S’pose you couldn’t go into the bunk-house and play rummy ’cause you was black. How’d you like that?† Crooks is insulted countless times every single day of his life, the name â€Å"nigger† is used such as the term ‘mate’ is used today, so without meaning to insult Crooks people did it every time they chose to speak to him. Every time when Crooks elevates himself above his usual status by making the odd chance comment or voicing his opinion, he is simply thrown back down to the ground. For example Crooks began to introduce his opinion into a conversation and was quite bluntly told by Curley’s wife, â€Å"you keep your place, then Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny†. I find it near impossible to even think that Crooks could lead a fulfilled life when he is treated like a dirty animal, and his thoughts or feelings are considered worthless. My thoughts are that Slim is the only main character in the whole novel that possibly leads a fulfilled life. Unlike Crooks, Slim is paid much respect by all of the other workers. Candy refers to Slim as â€Å"Hell of a nice fella†, and comments are also made about people’s reactions when he speaks, â€Å"all talk stopped when he spoke†. This gives Slim a sense of belonging and importance. Slim is a highly skilled worker and the ranch would not be the same without him, and he knows this, so do the other workers on the ranch, â€Å"He’s capable of driving ten, sixteen even twenty mules with a single line to the leaders†. It is comments and views such as these which make Slim feel needed. Slim is favoured by all on the ranch, perhaps especially by Crooks and Curley’s wife as he treats them without any prejudice or discriminative views. For example, Slim is very polite and actually pays a compliment to Curley’s wife â€Å"Hi, Good-lookin '†. Throughout the novel, Slim does not mention any other life that he might prefer, nor does he show any evidence of him having a dream, this shows that he must be reasonably content with his life on the ranch as he has no cause to dream. I believe Slim to be the only main character in the novel to live a fulfilled life because he is clearly respected by all members of the ranch and very much favoured by them. Slim has security and he is also very independent, because of everyone’s admiration he also feels good in himself, Slim must have a great sense of fulfilment in his life. In a time where everyone had to make the most of what they had, only one person in this novel has succeeded, and that in my eyes would be Slim. It was a ‘dog eat dog world’ during the Great Depression and Slim manages to rise above all of the bad things that have happened to him due to it. He manages to lift himself up above everyone else who were stuck in the rut of their own self pity, he manipulated the situation and uses it to his advantage. He took the wrong things in the other peoples lives and offered solutions for example he gave George someone to talk to, or the fact that he was polite to those who were treated like dirt, this made people like and respect him which is what drove him on inspite or the Depression.