Lennie Smalls

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In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck emphasizes how social and physical power may both immensely influence the different ways a person acts around others through the use of specific characterization of the characters and figurative language. Often, characters with considerable power tend to feel more privileged and significant than those with lesser power who act more timid and passive. CLAIM: Steinbeck represents the concept of physical strength in the character of Lennie Smalls. ESTABLISH EVIDENCE: Initially, Steinbeck describes Lennie as, ”a huge man…[who] walking heavily, dragging his feet, the way a bear drags his paws” (2). EVIDENCE: The author continues this extended metaphor of comparing Lennie to a large animal by describing his hands …show more content…
There exists a social hierarchy during the setting of Of Mice and Men in which some individuals are automatically ranked higher than others. Establish Evidence: Crooks, who is a black man, is the stable buck for the ranch. Just because of his skin color, he is naturally placed at the bottom of this social ladder. Curley’s wife (even though she is a woman) is more powerful than the workers because she is related to the boss who owns land. In chapter four, Steinbeck depicts a scene where Crooks, Lennie, Candy, and Curley’s wife are all in Crook’s cabin. The scene expertly displays the fluctuation of the power ladder through the actions of the characters. Evidence: Crooks is fed up with Curley’s wife and decides to speak his mind when he exclaims, “I had enough, you got no rights comin’ in a colored man’s room. You got no rights messing around in here at all” (80). Analysis: For a moment, Steinbeck introduced a new power dynamic in which Crooks climbed ahead of Curley’s wife on the ladder. Establish Evidence: However, this moment of prestige instantly dissolves when Curley’s wife gets up into Crooks’ face, threatens to lynch him, and calls him the N word. In a flash, each person was again restored to their typical social status. Evidence: Crooks’ attitude, “had reduced...to nothing,” (81) his voice was “toneless,” and “everything that might [have been] hurt [was] drawn in.” In the same scene, Candy rises to the same level of power as Curley’s wife by bragging about the land he is going to buy, and by blackmailing her saying, “Curley maybe ain’t gonna like his wife out in the barn with us ‘bindle stiffs’”
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