Quests In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Robert Burn’s line “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry” applies to George and Lennie in many ways. There are many examples of how their goals and dreams starts without troubles, but goes to the wrong direction and worse, comes to the point where they, although mainly George, realizes that his and Lennie’s dreams and goals are gone and impossible achieve.

Some people have to face difficult decisions in their life. In fact, some people have to make decisions between life and death. In John Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie are best friends and migrant workers during the Great Depression. Many characters face discrimination in the story including Lennie, Crooks, and Candy. Lennie is a tall guy who has a mental disability which makes it hard to distinguish between right and wrong. Crooks faces racism everyday, while Candy deals with ageism. On the other hand, Curley is a small man who is very intimidated by men bigger and stronger than him. George acts as Lennie’s caretaker and best friend. But, George realizes he has to make a life-changing decision when Curley threatens to hunt

The story Mice and Men is about two people traveling california finding work wherever they could. The two people traveling are named George and Lennie. George is the short and smart while Lennie is big, strong, and special. They travel looking a job because they can’t find a stable place to work and they can’t find work since Lennie is always getting into trouble causing them to flee the city. For example, they had a job in Soledad but Lennie touch a girl’s red dress and she yelled rape causing a misunderstanding causing to leave town. It was a misunderstanding since Lennie is special and really likes to touch soft things.

Barbara Sher once said, “‘Isolation is a dream killer’” (qtd. in Wishcraft). In his novella, Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck scrutinizes the effects that alienation can have on society. Many characters experience loneliness throughout the novel. He illustrates the results of individuals becoming isolated from their peers. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck portrays characters alienated from society in order to illustrate the harmful effects of loneliness caused by discrimination.

As the sun finally slipped down past the Gabilan Mountains, it left the valley in darkness. The trail was scarcely lit by the stars that barely shined through the branches of the towering sycamores. The beaten path was barely visible in the darkness, merely a slightly darker shadow than the tall grass surrounding it.

The first that we see in the book would be when George becomes angry with Lennie near the creek, but the first one the reader is told about would be when Lennie is falsely accused of rape. The last setback is when Lennie is killed, obviously stopping him from ever achieving that dream and, as the reader can infer, preventing George from doing this as well. He can’t very well go and get a pretty little plot of land without being reminded every day of the man he killed! Foster describes these setbacks as “A minorly unpleasant encounter with a German shepherd,” and continues on to show that “The real reason for a quest never involves the stated reason.” So, really, these setbacks aren’t true setbacks at all, just nudges in the direction George is supposed to go. Sadly, this means that Lennie does end up dying at George’s hands, but that’s the ultimate sign that their goal was never meant to be accomplished. "I seen hundreds of men come by on the road an' on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an' that same damn thing in their heads. Hundreds of them. They come, an' they quit an' go on; an' every damn one of 'em's got a little piece of land in his head. An' never a God damn one of 'em ever gets it," Crooks tells George and Lennie one night. Throughout the entire book, even George understands that this dream is far-fetched, and the other farmhands see

The hot summer day in South Carolina made Lennie wake up, sweating through the cover sheets protecting his bed. Aunt Clara made Lennie bathe, who reeked of sweat and read the old dusty bible that she had lying around. As Lennie kept reading, he found a quote that read “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34), but Lennie could not solve its meaning. After several hours passed by, Lennie could not take the loud, playful noise from outside and looked desperately out the window, where all the kids were hanging around. The hot air of South Carolina made his body feel like a teapot on the stove. Lennie could not take it anymore and finally cracked open the window,

As Slim was wrapping Curley’s hand, he couldn’t stop thinking about the excruciating pain that was thriving around. He tried to roll around to distract his mind but it was too much. Lennie had completely crushed the bones in his hand. “OWWWWWWWWWWWWW!” yelled Curley trying to disguise the pain.

The night was pitch black, misty and breezy but you could still see the path to the sycamores and the deep pool of water that laid ahead. The leaves swayed with the breeze. George stood still almost paralyzed staring at his dirty reflection in the water. Taking a step back the leaves crunched and it felt as if he’d just shot lennie again. Lennie’s last words running through his mind. He felt as he was pulling the trigger for the very first time once again and his heart stopped for a second just as Lennie’s did. His ears echoed hearing the invisible gun shot that was passed on to lennie. Two months without Lennie made George seem like a hopeless man. George’s american dream seemed no longer valuable and possible

The clearing was quiet, it seemed lifeless. The Salinas River still flowed merrily near the hillside. The water was still warm from the afternoon sun, and still reflected a green hue. On one side of the river, the smooth foothill slopes still curved up to the strong and rocky Gabilan Mountains, and the other side was still lined with trees. The willows and sycamore branches still swung gently in the wind, and the leaves still created a green light within the space. It was totally calm and peaceful… but something was wrong. The air seemed heavier, and the sun seemed dimmer. No animals stirred, and everything seemed to be aware of a deep sadness. Nothing moved save for a small group of men standing around an unmoving figure.

A book is not a book without conflict, and the same applies to a quest. Challenges, along with trial and error, are necessary for the quester to have a true expedition. Dealing with Lennie’s antics often causes George to lose his patience, and when george loses his patience, everything breaks loose. He verbally abuses Lennie by yelling things like “Well, we ain’t got any... Whatever we ain’t got, that’s what you want. God a’mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an work no trouble” (11). Lennie is dead weight in George’s eyes, although he isn’t the only person who has seen George’s short

There is a high chance that Of Mice and Men is, to say the least, the most depressing look at the Depression ever written. However, quests are seldom ever easy, and questers nearly always draw the short straw. John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is a very clear demonstration of a quest as Thomas C. Foster describes them in How to Read Literature like a Professor. Each of the five elements are illustrated in the novel. Of Mice and Men is an example of a quest because there is a clear and obvious quester with a specific goal, a series of setbacks and endangerments that prevent this goal from happening, and a final action that is performed despite the original goal not being achieved.

The concept of the Quest can be easily applied to John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.

John Steinbeck, an American novelist, is well-known for his familiar themes of depression and loneliness. He uses these themes throughout a majority of his novels. These themes come from his childhood and growing up during the stock market crash. A reader can see his depiction of his childhood era. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck shows the prominent themes of loneliness, the need for relationships, and the loss of dreams in the 1930s through the novels’ character.

For my book report I read Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Of Mice and Men is a fiction book told in the third person. The story is set most likely in the early to mid 1900’s, and most of the story takes place on a ranch in California. The story’s language was out-of-date for our younger generation, and it helped determine the time period. This was an excellent story and in the following paragraphs I’ll talk about the protagonist and antagonist, extra characters, and a summary of the book.