Of Mice And Men Weak Analysis

Weak and Strong: Who Will Prevail? Throughout John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, there is one very important and very clear conflict, the weak and the strong. Somebody always has some amount of power over others. It is very clear to see that there is always a conflict between the two, but the roles switch characters throughout the novel. Power can mean multiple things, but in the case of this book, it is more of a mental, or verbal, power, rather than strength. This is made evident through looking at Curley’s, Curley’s wife’s, and Slim’s power. To begin, Curley has mass amounts of power. He is the boss’s son, so he believes he can do whatever he wants without any repercussions. He has no problem picking on others and threatening those who he sees as bigger than him. For example, Lennie Small is a huge threat to Curley. Since Curley is a small man and Lennie is large, Curley feels as though he needs to prove something. This is very clear to tell when you read about the first time Curley laid eyes on Lennie. He looked at “the new men and he stopped. He glanced coldly at George and then at Lennie” (Steinbeck 23).
Due to being a woman at this time, she can manipulate any situation or problem to make it seem like it was not her fault in any way. One huge instance where she clearly has the upper hand with her power is when she walked into Crooks’s room to talk to him, Lennie, and Candy. Crooks ended up telling her to leave and that she should not be in there. He even went on to say how he would tell the boss not to let her in the barn anymore. However, she did not like this at all and went on to threaten Crooks, saying, “you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny” (Steinbeck 77). She had no real right or reason to do that, other than to show that she was the strong one and Crooks was the weak one with no