Analysis Of "Of Mice And Men"

Steinberg published his novel ÐŽ§Of mice and ManЎЁ in 1937, it was the time after the infamous Depression of American. SteinbergÐŽ¦ s ÐŽ§Of Mice and MenЎЁ is based on that period of time when economic collapsed, banks and companies closed and workers unemployed. And this novel, and a few other novel by Steinberg, based on what he see and what he experience during that difficult period.

One of the themes of this story is loneliness. Steinberg noticed that workers are some of the main sufferer of the Depression. Workers travel from town to town, place to place in order to find temporary job. They are not able to build relationship due to their brief togetherness with others before they needed to travel again looking for another job. SteinbergÐŽ¦s ÐŽ§Of mice and MenЎЁ built upon this loneliness and the isolation between workers from each other. Although he never directly mentioned any of his characters being lonely in the novel, we can see SteinbergÐŽ¦s intention by the way he describe his character and also in the conversation.

Indeed, Steinberg is particularly good at description, be it the scene, the characters or the environment. One good example is the description of CurleyÐŽ¦s wife. He mention ÐŽ§She hadÐŽKÐŽK.., heavily made up ЎЁ p.53.

ÐŽ§Her finger nails were redÐŽKÐŽK. She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathersЎЁ p.53

By describing the inappropriate dress of CurleyÐŽ¦s wife in the ranch give reader a impression that this CurleyÐŽ¦s wife is a loose woman. The use color red in her appearance also point out that she is not a well behaved housewife as in the expression ÐŽ§Scarlet WomanЎЁ. What is more, SteinbergÐŽ¦s description on her started even before her first appearance in the story through conversation between Candy and George on p49 -50. Candy mentioned ÐŽ§I seen he give Silm the eyeЎЁ p.49, ÐŽ§AnÐŽ¦ I seen her give Carlson the eyeЎЁp.50 and ÐŽ§I think CrueltyÐŽ¦s married ÐŽK a tartЎЁ p50 show the brilliance in SteinbergÐŽ¦s description, especially in character

The theme of the novel is around loneliness and every character seem to be lonely in their own ways. The cause and the behaviour of each characterÐŽ¦s loneliness is not the same. One of the obvious examples is Crook; he has his own room, which is a sign of isolation from others in the ranch, suggesting he is lonely on his own. One can argue that one of the reasons he reject others from seeing him (besides he might be abuse) is because he is so use to this loneliness that he doesnÐŽ¦t want to change.

Other character shows signs of loneliness as well. Although never mentioned in the story; one of the reasons that George and Lennie travel together is because they fear loneliness as George once mentioned a few time ÐŽ§with us it ainÐŽ¦t like that (other ranch workers). We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about usÐŽKÐŽKЎЁ p.32 and Lennie added ÐŽ§ÐŽK

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