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Explore the Different Ways Power Is Presented in Steinbeck’s ‘of Mice and Men’

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Explore the Different Ways Power Is Presented in Steinbeck’s ‘of Mice and Men’
Power is presented through characters by using a long description of what the character is like, describing their appearance, positive points and negative points. The power of the character is presented by demonstrating their dominance or submissiveness over another character through their actions, speech and the way they behave around them, and if they change their behaviour around other people, for example Curley acts as if he’s the best in the world at everything around Lennie because he tries to beat him up but he doesn’t act that way towards Slim, who is more dominant and powerful than him in terms of dominance, but not in terms of ranch hierarchy.

Power is presented through friendship by the way Lennie and George are unable to function without each other but when they are together, they are more powerful than most people are on their own. Power is presented through the dream because without the dream, Lennie and George have nothing to look forward to so they can go on living without a worry because even if something does happen, they know at some point they will eventually be able to get away from it.

The relationship of Lennie and George is powerful because if one is in trouble, the other can help him and they’ve known each other for so long that they can trust each other and their friendship has a future of highs and lows. It’s like a roller coaster where they can scream or enjoy the ride. The description of the characters reveals that they are exactly the opposite of each other, for example, George is “Small, quick, dark of face with restless eyes and sharp, strong features.” but Lennie is “A huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes with wide sloping shoulders and he walked heavily.” and yet they can’t live without each other because they are on opposite ends of the scale and need to come together in the middle to overcome problems as one. The mouse incident shows George’s authority and dominance over Lennie because he only “snapped his

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