John Steinbeck explores many different topics in his books. One of the many ideas he incorporates into his book “Of Mice and Men” is feminism. In the story there is one main character that is a woman. That is Curley’s wife and she is the symbol for lots of things in the book. Mainly she is the victim of sexual objectification. She is shown to wear revealing outfits and she is constantly flirting with the ranch workers. Steinbeck also explores the idea of abusive language towards women. Behind Curley and Curley’s wife’s backs the ranch workers call her derogatory names and make fun of her. While no one directly calls her these names, she is still the victim of being verbally harassed even if it is indirectly. But in a rare twist, Curley’s wife actually has a lot of power over the ranchers. Because Curley is the boss's son, he can get people fired and he can pretty much do whatever he wants. Curly’s wife takes advantage of this by flirting with ranchers knowing they can’t flirt back. And she even threatens Crooks by saying she'll get him hung all because Crooks told her to leave him alone. Overall, John Steinbeck explores the idea of feminism in his book “Of Mice and Men.”
Within the book “Of Mice and Men,” John Steinbeck incorporates the idea of racism all throughout the story. The main way this is shown is through the character Crooks. Crooks is the only black man on the ranch and he is the victim of racism. First, he doesn’t sleep with the rest of the ranchers. He has his own little shed so he is pretty much segregated from the rest of the ranchers just because of his skin color. This leads to him feeling different, alone, and alienated. Crooks is also unable to play cards with the rest of the guys because of his skin color. Lennie seems to be the only person that doesn’t care about his skin color and the two have a conversation. Through this conversation we learn that Crooks has internalized the racism he has been affected by. He talks to Lennie about being lonely and not having anybody and Lennie doesn’t seem to understand why. Curley’s wife tries to join this conversation and when she is rejected by Crooks she threatens him with lynching. She only does this because he is black and she would not have done this to any other rancher. She says that because she knows she can. Ultimately, racism is a big idea explored through the book “Of Mice and Men.”
Disability is a big topic in “Of Mice and Men.” John Steinbeck explores this idea through the character Lennie. Lennie is mentally disabled and he cannot live by himself and he needs a caretaker. This caretaker happens to be another rancher by the name of George. Throughout the book we can see the effects of Lennie’s disability on everyone else. The biggest example of this is when he kills Curley’s wife. Lennie loves soft things but he is too big for his own good. He accidentally kills a puppy and Curley’s wife comes in and finds the dead puppy. She talks with him and then she lets him touch her hair. She gets scared because he grabs too hard and he ends up breaking her neck by accident. Throughout this section he is compared to animals. This is a common theme throughout the book. Lennie is constantly compared to wild animals just because of his disability. Steinbeck also shows the internal effects that the mental disability has on Lennie. Lennie is shown to not have rational thinking or at least not as much as everyone else does. The things that get him out of bed everyday are George, soft objects/animals, and his dream for the future. He doesn’t understand why people get upset with him and he is very childlike. He doesn’t know his own strength and he doesn’t realize he is a massive guy. To him he is just a child which leads to many misunderstandings and mishaps. All in all, John Steinbeck explores the theme of how disability impacts people in “Of Mice and Men.”
The biggest theme in “Of Mice and Men” is probably the economy. John Steinbeck is constantly mentioning money and how the working class was barely able to survive because of how much they were getting paid. Mainly he always includes situations to show how the ranchers are being exploited. They are doing things way above their paygrade because if they didn’t, then they wouldn’t be able to live. Steinbeck makes it clear that all of the ranchers are forced to work to survive. They weren’t able to find work anywhere else and doing the work that no one else wants to do is the only way they were able to make money. It’s made obvious that every character besides maybe the ranch boss is in the lowest possible class of society. Because everyone is so broke they are at the bottom of the class hierarchy. The ranchers are essentially trapped in a box and they are ultimately unable to escape this box by the end of the book. To wrap up, in “Of Mice and Men,” Steinbeck incorporates details about the economy and makes it a large part of the book.