The Importance Of Life In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Of mice and men Is a novella about how life sucks written by John Steinbeck in 1937. It follows the story of Lennie Smalls, a mentally handicapped but incredibly strong farmhand, and George Milton, a quick witted but not particularly strong farmhand with whom Lennie travels, as they search for work in the height of the great depression. They have to keep moving because Lennie frequently gets them in trouble due to his obsession with soft objects. In one such instance they are on the run because Lennie was accused of rape for petting a girls velvet dress. Because of this they will never achieve their dream of owning a small farm and living off the land. This theme is very apparent in the lives of the other characters in the story too. For instance
curley’s wife dreamed of being a movie star but instead chose to play it safe and married curley and thus never achieved her dreams. The same can be said for candy, the aging ranch hand who fears he is outliving his usefulness, upon hearing of George and lennie’s dreams he is quick to offer to pitch in his money bringing them closer to achieving it however in the end it doesn’t matter(linkin park reference). Or then there is crooks who makes shows that he is lonely but cant do anything about it because he is isolated from the other farmhands due to the color of his skin. All of these examples make it very clear that the message Steinbeck is trying to send in this story is that life sucks and there is nothing anyone can do about it, and also Santa isn’t real.