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Critical Lense
Some people believe that “Good literature helps us understand ourselves.” In other words, fiction teaches us about human nature. I agree with this statement. We see an example of this in the novel, Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck.
In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck we can see through the characterization of Curley’s wife. It is natural to want to feel valued and respected. She wants attention so badly that she doesn’t care if she leaved the house and goes to Crook’s room and tries to talk to the boys. She even shows this when she says, “An’ what am I doin’?” “Standin’ here talkin’ to a bunch of bindle stiffs.”….an’ likin’ it because they ain’t nobody else(78).’’ What Curley’s wife is saying is instead of talking to people she knows she is talking to a bunch of strangers and she is willing to talk to strangers in order to satisfy her desires. We see this same desire later, in Chapter 5, when Curley’s wife comes into the barn because she is looking for someone to talk to. She demonstrates this when she says, ‘”I get lonely…you can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curly.’” She doesn’t feel valued because she has no one to talk to except for Curly. But even he doesn’t listen to her. She just wants to feel accepted. She is so desperate that she will talk to anyone, even Lennie, just to be heard and respected. As we can see clearly, when we studied Curley’s wife, we start to realize Steinbecks purpose: we all just want to be valued and respected.
In addition Steinbeck demonstrates that it is natural to want to feel valued and respected. He also conveys that when we don’t feel valued and respected we become lonely. We can see that when Curley’s wife says to Lennie, Candy and Crooks’ in Crook’s room ‘’Well I ain’t giving you no trouble. Think I don’t like to talk to somebody ever’ once in a while? Think I like to stick in that house alla time?’’(77).What Curley’s wife is saying is that she really has no one to talk to and

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