Mental Disabilities In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Of Mice and Men How do you think society handle people who are different? I was treated differently when I moved to Connecticut. Everyone talked about me and did not like me because I was born in Texas. Everyone called me dumb because I did not have the same education as everyone else. People use to say “You’ll never be as smart as me because you were born in a dumb state.” They use to make fun of my accent, they would taunt me and say “Howdy y’all!” and act like a cowboy.
In John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men set in the 1930’s in Salinas Valley, California we meet the static character Lennie Smalls and his best friend George. While it is obvious to the reader that Lennie has a mental disability because of his actions, it is never directly stated. However, when he… “I’d pet ‘em, and pretty soon they bit my fingers and I pinched their heads a little and then they was dead- because they was so little.” (Steinbeck 10). This shows he has a mental disability because he was only holding the mice because he
“And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he lay without quivering.” (Steinbeck 106) There are no systems to keep Lennie safe back then. “Well that girl rabbits in an’ tells the law she been raped.The guys in Weed start a party out to lynch Lennie.” (Steinbeck 42) Since they did not have any systems in place to keep Lennie safe people wanted to kill Lennie for touching a girls dress. George knew no one in the farm knew that he had a mental disability because nothing could help him. Unlike today where there are tests people who have mental disabilities take to examine what treatments they receive and where they