Of Mice and Men

‘Of Mice And Men’ has been seen as a novel without hope, but it has also been seen as a novel with shows something positive. How does Steinbeck convey his ideas about human nature and human relationships?

The novel can be seen more as a novel without hope, but there is some hope within the story. Steinbeck conveys his ideas of human nature and relationships. There are three main ideas of human nature; loneliness, hopes and dreams, and violence. His ideas of human relationships are; that dreams can bring people closer, you may lose a friend but you can always gain another and that people get alienated by the main party. Steinbeck also says that they were trapped in a cycle where everyone ends up in the same position.

There is a sense of a perverse natural justice that punishes everybody who attempts to leave their lonely position in life; this is shown through some of the characters in the novel. The novel starts off with the idea of loneliness; the first line says ‘few miles away’ from any settlement in Soledad. Also the word Soledad means lonely in Spanish, with this isolated place he presents isolated characters. Crooks is a coloured migrant worker that has been crippled. He has been alienated by the people of the ranch into his own place on the ranch, where only he goes. Nobody goes there because they think he is a monster because he is a different colour to themselves. When Lennie goes to Crooks’ room, Crooks gets angry at him, this is because he has been alienated by the people of the ranch, that all white people are evil, because they treat him like a monster. Curley’s wife is another example of someone who is lonely. She is excluded because she is a woman. She is hated by the people of the ranch because she is Curley’s wife, everyone hates Curley. She only talks to Lennie and Crooks because they are the ‘weak ones’. She can only talk to them because they are the only ones that are weak enough for her to overpower.

Steinbeck says to us that the world is...