John Steinbeck's Morose Preoccupation Essay

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John Steinbeck's Morose Preoccupation

John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men is a somewhat strange, surprising read. The author selects a very unlikely setting, a farm populated predominantly by hired hands, for a tale that is largely predicated on the conception of friendship and its myriad interpretations -- and applications. However, there is a definite undercurrent that some readers might find disturbing that is present in some of the most poignant notions of this tale. That undercurrent is one of death, the virtue that Western civilization seemingly extols above most other ones. An analysis of some of the more pivotal moments in this novel reveal that ultimately it is a morbid one in which death is seen as the ultimate expression of friendship: which is more than a little morose, to say the least.

Thematically, it is difficult to distinguish the motifs of friendship and death that are tightly intertwined in this particular novel. It is clear from the novel's outset that friendship is one of the central concepts that the plot is based upon. Perhaps the two characters that typify this theme more than any other are George and Lenny, who have the sort of relationship that is rare to find in the oftentimes harsh and cruel world of farms and farmhands. In fact, the relationship between the pair is more familial than anything other, which merely underscores the extremely close nature of their friendship. This fact is well demonstrated in the subsequent passage in which George tells Lenny, "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got not family. They don't belong ... With us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us ... " (Steinbeck, 1993). The people that George and Lenny have that care about them, of course, is themselves. George is merely emphasizing the fact that because they have an enduring friendship, they are different from most other farmhands. It is apparent that this friendship is special to both men, and the things that distinguishes them from the other characters found in the novel.

Because the relationships between the two men is so close and epitomizes friendship, it is almost shocking that the author ends the novel with George killing Lennie. Granted, he does so in order to spare Lennie (who is somewhat mentally retarded) the pain, anguish, and suffering of getting killed by the lynch mob that pursues him after he accidentally kills a woman. Still, the very fact that the author expresses the feeling of friendship -- unique to George and Lennie -- by having the former slay the latter in what is considered a mercy killing illustrates what seems like typical Western preoccupation with death. George, who is characterized early on in the novel as having "sharp, strong features" (Steinbeck, 1993) leaves the scene of the murder distraught. His best friend, of course, is dead. The combination of these circumstances certainly causes the sentimental reader to feel some form of sadness or depression. However, that sadness is magnified by the fact that the author has placed such a killing between companions as a way of reinforcing his theme of friendship. The relationship between these themes is more than paradoxical: because George cares about Lennie, he kills him to keep others from killing him. The sentimental reader is left thinking that there surely must be a less morose way of expressing the virtue and value of friendship other than killing one's best friend.

Crooks is another character that Steinbeck uses to reinforce the notion that ultimately this novel is about friendship, and one so profound that one best friend murders another. Crooks' characterization is the opposite of that of George and Lennie. Whereas the author utilizes the aforementioned pair to indicate how powerful friendship is and how important it is to this novel, he utilize Crooks to indicate how lonesome life is without friendship and how desperate a man can come to need friendship. Crooks is ostracized from the rest of the farmhands because he is African-American. Nonetheless, he pines for the sort of friendship that George and Lennie have -- or for any at all. He tells Lennie:

A guy sets alone out here at night, maybe readin' books or thinkin' or stuff like that. Sometimes he gets thinkin', an' he got nothing to tell him what's so and what ain't so. Maybe if he sees something', he don't know whether it's right or not. He can't turn to some other guy and ast him if he sees it too. He can't tell.

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He got nothing to measure by (Steinbeck, 1993).

This quotation illustrates exactly how lonely Crooks is. This idea is readily reinforced by the fact that on an evening in which all of the other men go to a brothel, he is left alone at the farm. That he is making this speech to Lenny further underscores the reality that what Lenny has, Crooks does not: and that Crooks desires such a friendship. In fact, the passage also implies that such a friendship is a necessity for farmhands. Nonetheless, the companionship that Crooks so ardently longs for is the very thing that kills Lenny, which is certainly a perverse way of indicating that friendship is the dominant theme of the story. For all of Crooks' pining, at least he is alive at the end of the story.

Another way that Steinbeck stresses that friendship is perhaps the most valuable theme in this book -- and is so valuable that it even warrants George taking Lenny's life as the ultimate expression of their friendship -- is by having other characters believe in and take part in the friendship between the two men. Crooks, of course, badly desires a companion yet never gets one. Candy, however, is able to make friends with both George and Lenny and even plans to join in their dream of one day owning their own farm. That dream, of course, is one of the fundamental points of George and Lennie's friendship; the pair believe that if they continue to persevere they will eventually be able to earn enough money to have their own farm. It is highly significant, then, that Crooks offers up his life savings in an attempt to become partners with the two men in their future endeavors. Implicit in this gesture is the camaraderie and friendship he now shares with the two men. In fact, shortly after stating that he wants to (literally) buy into the dream, "Old Candy nodded in appreciation of the idea," (Steinbeck, 1993) of the threesome someday owning their own land. This fact is important because it shows that the sort of bond that ties George and Lennie to one another is something that other farmers they encounter value, and want to become a part of. As such, the importance of friendship to this novel is once again asserted.

It is also important to realize that in a novel in which friendship is the predominant theme as expressed in relationships between men, it is a woman that ultimately severs that relationship and brings about the secondary theme of death. Specifically, Curley's wife is a harbinger of death in the novel in two very eminent ways. Firstly, she offers herself to Lennie as a point of consolation to the latter's inadvertent slaying of his puppy (which is another instance of death in this novel). It seemed a little silly, and almost stereotypical, that Lenny then inadvertently kills her because of his prodigious strength. Frankly, this accidental death seemed unrealistic. Granted, Lennie definitely has a penchant for slaying things. But typically those things included small animals. The killing of Curley's wife functions as the pivotal turning point for the plot, because then Lennie has to run and then his own death is imminent -- either at the hands of the lynch mob or at the hands of George. Nonetheless, it is significant to realize that in a story that is filled with friendship between men and farmhands, that a woman is ultimately responsible for the dissolution of the single most important friendship between men in this novel. One may posit the viewpoint that Steinbeck purposefully chooses a woman to ruin this friendship to emphasize how important amicability is between farmers in this story. The end result is that Curley's wife dies, and her interference with Lennie ultimately leads to Lennie's slaying at the hands of George, which is certainly a morbid way to end a novel about the importance of friendship between men.

In summary, Of Mice and Men is a twisted tale about a friendship so profound that one of the friends kills the other to prevent the latter from having to endure an even more gruesome and scary death. The prevalence of death as one of the most prominent themes in this book other than friendship is certainly counterintuitive in a book about friendship. As such, it makes the book unsettling and….....

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