Of Mice and Men

In my opinion the weakest in society are always preyed upon in general but also in this case, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, in Of Mice and Men, characters weaknesses are preyed upon, there are many characters who’s weaknesses are preyed upon such as; Crooks, who is a ‘negro stable buck’ who is racially aggravated and is preyed upon racially and because he walks crooked due a problem with his back. Lennie, who is a mental handicap which prevents him from living life as an independent adult, he is preyed upon because of his lack of ability to be independent and his stupidity. Candy, who is elderly and has no hand as he lost it in a machine accident, he is preyed upon because people think that he is not capable of doing jobs that a normal person could do.

Of Mice and Men is a book that was set in the 1930’s in Salinas, California when the world was on a downhill slope with things such as the great depression, which was when all the world’s economies failed to gain profits and all the stock markets crashed which left the world in disarray and lead to things like migrant workers. In this novel Steinbeck presents two people following a dream and trying to own their own ranch, George & Lennie, they fail to fulfil their dream but at the time, America was all about dreams and people wanting to fulfil them. There was vast segregation between whites and blacks at the time and this is presented viciously by Steinbeck throughout the novel.
Crooks’ weakness was that he was black, and as I mentioned previously, whites were seen to be superior to blacks at the time and blacks had very little rights, he also is Crooked because something happened to his back which forces him to walk crooked which may even be the reason he is called Crooks however his name goes almost unnoticed during the novel, Steinbeck shows the segregation between everyone else and Crooks well because there are certain things that Crooks cannot do that others can, such as; playing cards with the rest of the men at the bunk house, he lives in a separate place compared to where everyone else lives. He is preyed upon because of his weakness in many ways and in the end he almost seems to accept it for example when Curley’s wife threatens him when she states ‘You keep your place nigger, I’ll get you strung up on a tree it aint even funny’ this shows the reader that even Curley’s wife, being the only dominantly figured character in the novel, still has more authority over Crooks primarily because she is white and Crooks is black. After this Crooks then ‘Reduces himself to nothing’, this shows the reader that he knows she is right so he gains the sympathy vote because when something is reduced, it gets smaller which then, once he ‘reduces himself’ makes the reader portray him as a child and feel to give him sympathy.
Lennie’s weakness is that he is a mental handicap, and Lennie, being one of the main characters in the novel, is preyed upon just simply because of his immense size and his utter stupidity, he is preyed upon many times during the novel, even right in the beginning when talking about their work card, Lennie thinks he lost his, he then ‘looks down to the ground in despair’ , and then George replies “You never had none, you crazy bastard, I got both of em here, Think I’d let you carry your own work card?” this makes the reader note, no matter how strong Lennie and George’s relationship is, George cannot trust Lennie because of his ‘lack of mind’, stupidity and in this case, his ability to lose things. Also because of Lennie’s helplessness, he often doesn’t know how to act around other humans, so when confronted with violence, he is helpless and can’t respond without instructions from George, “Lennie looked helplessly at George, then he got up and tried to retreat. ‘Make ‘um stop, George.” He only begins to fight back when George encourages him “Get ‘im, Lennie!”. Lennie is also preyed upon at the end of the novel, after Lennie kills Curley’s wife, Curley, instead of worrying about his dead wife, he wants to kill the ‘Big Son-of-a-bitch’ , he labels Lennie as this, this is a prime example of Lennie being preyed upon because, Curley labels him ‘big’ because of his mass size and this makes the reader think that Curley is a character who would take advantage of Lennie’s weakness at every given opportunity, this also shows how Lennie is preyed upon throughout the book and not just singular occasions. Candy was also preyed upon as a result of two main factors, one being his disability and the other being his age. For example, throughout the book we find the farmhands out bucking the barley while Candy is left behind to sweep and clean the ranch. He lost his hand after getting it caught in a piece of machinery and as a result he is forced to stay behind. This being one of the major factors that leads to his victimisation and him being preyed on. Furthermore, Candy's age adds to his feeling of uselessness. Because he thinks that he is old he puts himself in a state of mind that handicaps him more than his missing hand ever will. He looks down on himself as an old worthless man that's wasting away his last few years and is evidently made to feel like this by the people in the ranch.. Not only is it the way that others think of him but also the way he thinks of himself that forces him to find solitude.

In conclusion, in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, preying upon characters weaknesses is something that comes up on many occasions and is almost accounted as everyday life it comes up so much, taking everything into account, I still believe that the weakest in society are always preyed upon and my points have suggested this aswell.