Of Mice And Men And Social Characters Essay

In this essay I will examine three characters that can be considered as social misfits. I will talk about crooks, lennie and Curley’s wife as my three social characters. The reason that I have chosen these characters is because, Lennie is simple minded, crooks is black and Curley’s wife is a woman, these reasons will explain why each of these characters doesn’t fit into the environment. I will explain why Steinbeck has included the above characters in the novel. At last I will finish my essay by giving my conclusion. I have chosen crooks as a social misfit because he is the only black man on the ranch and back in the 1930’s, black people were treated differently to white people because of their skin colour. In my opinion crooks is a lonely person because again he is black, no one wants to talk to him or play card with him because he is black. â€Å"They play cards in there and I can’t play because I’m black!† Generally the level of the racism is so high. For instance, different characters have said a word â€Å"nigger† several times throughout the novel and this in my opinion is very racist towards black people. â€Å"If I say something, why it’s just a nigger talking†. Every one judges him by looking at his skin colour but he is possibly the most intelligent man on the ranch because he can read. â€Å"He had books too, California civil code for 1905†. With this knowledge he is discriminated and has to sleep alone behind the stables. Steinbeck has included crooks in this novel because he wanted to demonstrate how black people were treated differently. Not because white people don’t like black people’s personality, no; it’s just because of their skin colour. Crook is one of those fortunate black men who are very talented but he can’t fit into the environment because of his skin colour. I have chosen Lennie as one of my social misfit character because he in fact is mentally disabled. Lennie’s brain can only think about rabbits or mice, â€Å"don’t you think of nothing but rabbits.† He is very different to other characters because they can have serious conversations but Lennie can’t, but if he wants to talk to people he will either talk about tending rabbits or their dream of having a small farm, â€Å"the rabbits that we’re gonna get, and I get to tend them.† Lennie’s mind is just like a child because he only thinks about tending rabbits like a child would do, â€Å"I remember about tending rabbits George.† â€Å"Don’t you think of nothing but rabbits?† Steinbeck has include Lennie in this novel to show some of the Americans were narrow minded and most of them where uneducated. Curley’s wife can be considered as one of my social misfit characters because she is the only woman on the ranch. Steinbeck is trying to demonstrate about a woman back in 1930s, and how they were treated. You can see Curley’s wife was treated as a sexual object. For example, she is sometimes called a â€Å"tart† by the man or she couldn’t talk to any one except Curley, â€Å"you can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley .else he gets mad.† I personally feel sorry for Curley’s wife because she was not allowed to talk to any one except her husband and in my opinion she is a very lonely person. Curley’s wife and crooks are quite similar. No one wants to talk to crooks because he is black, no one wants to talk to Curley’s wife because she is a woman and in those day’s women’s and black people were treated differently so both of them were abused because of what they are. In my opinion Steinbeck has include Curley’s wife in the novel of mice and men because he wanted to demonstrate the position of the women and how they were treated. I think in 1930s there were fewer women in America than men’s in and those women’s were viewed as a sexual object by men’s. My conclusion is that every one of these three characters can be considered as a social misfit but in my opinion crooks is more likely not to be fit into the environment because he is black and in 1930s there were few black people in community in America. Crooks can’t have a conversation with people because he has a coloured skin that’s why he is very lonely. In my opinion it would have been boring if everyone on the ranch was white. By putting crooks in this novel everyone can see that black community weren’t in demand as white community.