Buckley 1
Brendan Buckley
Mr. Kenrick
English 9
9 September 2012
A Man or A Muppet In Of Mice and Men the charachters reveal a good amount of information about how big of a man they really are. The culture in the book and in the culture of modern day people is extremly cowardly and they are ignorant of so many things. The manhood featured in the book is highly varried because there are cowardly charachters and there are also some very wise charachters. The people who are ignorant are usually the bad guy or the heel in the story plot. Just as well the wise and fair people are normally the good guys or the hero. The majority of the people in this story are highly ingnorant of people who are different and the wise and kind people are much more tolerant of people who are different than everyone else. The culture in the book and the culture of the carachters is rather ignorant. An example of ignorance is when Candy called the stable buck the N word but that was used often during that time so it was not the oly time it was mentioned during the book. Even though they used the N word to identify him Candy said he was a nice guy aswell so it is kind of arse-backwards. Another example of ignorance was when Curly assumed George and Lennie were gay because Curly was married and George and Lennie were two guys traveling together and were extremly close. He was being ignorant but it was most likely him just being a punk and trying to intimidate George and Lennie. Overall the ignorance of the charachters is showing that manhood is fairly rare to find in this time period. The charachters in Of Mice and Men are also somewhat cowardly. An example of a person being a coward is when, George repeatedly tells Lennie had he ever get in trouble go to the bush. Another example of someone being cowardly is when Candy refused to kill his old dog so Carlson kills the dog. Later in the novel Candy mentions that he should have been th one who killed the dog not Carlson. Yet another example of someone being a coward is when George lied and said that Carlson must have lost the Luger instead of telling Curley, Carlson, Slim and, Candy that infact he had the Luger. There is many people in the world who would much rather just sit back and let others do the hard work, those are the cowards. The presentation of manhood in Of Mice and Men was very subtle because many of the characters were squimish and cowardly. The first example of manhood was when Slim, even though Curley was interrigating George and Lennie, was calm and kind while talking to the two new arivals. This demonatrates that when others are doing wrong you don't need to follow along. For example if everyone was going to lay on the train tracks would you lay on the train tracks? Obiously not, the point is that Slim did not care what others did or even thought about him because he was a true man. The second example was when Lennie was being assaulted by Curley he grabbed Curley's fist and crushed it because a boy that stands up for himself is truly a man. The story also shows that no matter who you are or where you are life always tries to give you a swift kick in the pants. This was shown by Lennie never catching a break from getting in trouble in Weed, Curley trying to prove he is the big dog and Lennie is his ragdoll, and when Lennie acciedentally kills Curley's wife and in turn is killed by his mentor, his guide, his only family like figure, George. The other example is how Curley's wife opens up and tells Lennie about her past and how she was never given a fair shot. First her
