Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

This story was very complex. Not only does it bring up the idea of justice (with the murder of Lennie), but it brings up gender roles (all of the women mentioned in this story besides Aunt Clara are whores or presumed whores as is the case with Curley's wife) and it brings up the treatment of people who have special needs.

In terms of justice, I don't think there really is any true justice. No matter what George had done they wouldn't have been able to run and hide forever, and if they'd stayed Lennie would have ended up dead either way. Not only that, but there is also the underlying idea that letting Lennie run free with George (if they had run away) would put society in general in harms way because there is no telling whether or not Lennie might have done this again. If Lennie had realized what he was doing when he had done it, or learned from past events that might have been one thing, but Lennie had continually had the same problem with not knowing his own strength and accidentally killing things (the mice, the puppy, and then Curley's wife). What if he ran into a situation like with the little girl in Weeds again? Would he kill her if George wasn't there to stop him? There really is no way to bring justice for everyone (Curley's wife, Curley, society, and Lennie). George believes that ethically he is doing what he has to do because he is killing Lennie in a way that he isn't feeling any pain, and is calm because he doesn't know what's happening. If Curley had gotten a hold of Lennie he would have had him all riled up and been cursing at him and Lennie would have seen the gun pointed at him and been scared and maybe even confused. While there is not real answer to whether it was right for George to kill Lennie, I can see why he did it. I don't think I could have done it if I were in his position, but I think that it took a lot of courage on George's part to do that, especially in light of the relationship that he and Lennie had.

I think that a feminist reading of this text would be really interesting. If you look at the female characters who are mentioned in this book, only Aunt Clara is seen as a "decent" person. The other women are all "tarts" or "whores". In the case of Curley's wife this a negative thing, because she's married. It's interesting that when it comes to the women who own or work in the "cat houses" they are repeatedly referred to as whores, but the girls at Susy's are still seen as better than the other girls (52). These women are purposely allowing men to use their bodies for pleasure. Curley's wife is doing so in much the same way, standing in the doorways in postures which purposefully show of her legs and pushing her body forward to show it off. While the other men realize what she's doing, Lennie doesn't understand it. He stares at her, dumbfounded by her beauty and falling into her trap as she shows it all off.
Even though Aunt Clara is not a whore, in fact, Lennie and George often talk about what a good person she was, she's also not a very strong nor a very prominent character in this book. The only real descriptions we get of her are as a motherly figure to Lennie because she has taken care of him since he was young. A feminist would argue that this book not only portrays women in a negative light, but it seems to encourage it with the constant talk of whore houses? The only time that going to a whore house is ever shown in a negative light (other than the discussion of Susy's being better than the other place) is when George and Lennie are talking about being different from everyone else. They avoid spending their money on alcohol and women because they have a dream in mind, but the fact that their dream is never realized and the George realizes at the end that without Lennie he is just like everyone else makes it seem like he has succumbed to the idea that it is the way men like him are supposed to live because they can't actually do any better than that.

The third big topic that this book brought to my mind was the treatment of people with special needs. As I was reading Of Mice and Men two other books kept coming to mind. The first was The Green Mile. (Yes, I actually took the time to read the book even though I'd seen the movie. Long book, but better than the movie I think.) I think that this book came to mind for two reasons. The first was that I kept picturing Lennie as John Coffey. Lennie was white, which would have changed the outlook of him since we see how blacks are treated in this book through the portrayal of Crooks, but they also have a lot of similarities. They were both big and strong. They neither one had a place that they really belonged and floated from place to place to find work. After this the similarities pretty much stop, but I think that the fact that they're both large plays into this idea of the way they are treated. John is never known to be have any sort of disability, but he does talk a little slower than the other characters (at least in the movie version) which gives the impression that he might have had one. The other book this one continually reminded me of was The Man Who Loved Clowns. In the book Punky Holloway is a thirty-five year old man with Down's Syndrome, and throughout the novel we see his interactions with his fifteen year old niece. Many people make rude comments about Punky both to him and behind his back. While we don't really see people talking about Lennie much while he's not around we do see that people are constantly calling him "dumb" while he's around, even George talks about him in this way. Both Punky and Lennie are very child-like, and other people don't seem to understand this and it takes them some convincing to accept it. For example, in Lennie's case George believes that in order for people to accept him they must see him work before they realize that he "ain't bright" (22). George is comparable to the niece in the other story. She helps take care of her uncle and finds herself protecting him against other people who make fun of his disability or who are scared of the way he acts. The treatment of mental disabilities in this novel is interesting because even the character who most stands up for Lennie, George, doesn't always treat him with the most respect in terms of the way he talks to him. They almost seem to have a brotherly relationship, which often means name calling and fits of anger on George's part when Lennie messes up, but also means love and care and protection from the cruelty and discrimination of others.