Violence and Sadism in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men ...

In John Steinbeck’s powerful American masterpiece Of Mice and Men, first published in 1937 during the height of the Great Depression, the main characters of George Milton and Lennie Small knowledge many hard and difficult situations which sometimes are rich with physical violence and sadistic behavior, because of living and working in “a world in which personal connection is proclaimed by… small control, disbelief, jealousy and callousness” (Scheer 14).

Yet after a careful reading of the text, it might be clear that George and Lennie are in times the real instigators in the violence whilst also getting pawns inside the hands of such guys as Curley, the prizefighter who locates much sadistic delight in picking on the hacienda workers and people whom he sees as socially below him. Oddly enough, Steinbeck him self was quite familiar with the trials and tribulations connected with being an outsider and a common laborer, much like George and Lennie in Of Mice and Men.

During his youth, Steinbeck worked diligently as being a hired side on ranches close to his home in Salinas, Washington dc, where he attained and talked with migrant farm workers who informed him with their adventures and mishaps just before and during the truly amazing Depression the moment millions of people had been unemployed and were forced to earn their very own living in any respect necessary. These chance meetings and descriptions of what was like as a common worker served Steinbeck well, to get he later incorporated several down-and-out reports into his novels and short stories, Of Mice and Men being no exception.

If we look at some of the key scenes in Of Rodents and Males, the presence of assault and sadism can easily be inquired about, especially throughout the actions and reactions of Lennie Small , the lumbering giant together with the mind of a child who also brings a frightening capacity for violence into the naive bunkhouse with the ranch. As William Goldhurst points out, Lennie “carries with him, in one piece from childhood, that low threshold among rage and pleasure which usually we all take within us into adulthood” (135), yet in the hands of those many prone to sadistic behavior, Lennie is a scapegoat and thus can not be held accountable for his actions, due to his mental capability which borders on imbecility.

In the landscape where George and Lennie are on their particular way to the ranch to buck barley, the chat turns for their last job in the small town of Weed, wherever Lennie was attracted to a girl’s reddish colored dress. Following grabbing at her clothes, Lennie started to be so terrified by her screaming that George was forced to strike him to head to produce him release her. After this incident, the duo winds up being hunted down by a mafia out to lynch them intended for Lennie’s take care of the girl which the eye of the lynch mob was akin to attempted rape.

Essentially, this picture illustrates Steinbeck’s power being a writer with his ability to bring into remarkable scenes of social issue the psychological forcefulness of Lennie’s infantile reactions towards the girl’s reddish colored dress. Nevertheless the violence of Lennie towards girl pales in comparison to the violent reactions from the mob who also are naturally either unaware of Lennie’s child-like mind or simply just see the condition as a chance to express their particular inner anger towards “a subhuman monster, unable to distinguish between right and wrong” (Benson 256).

The first introduction of Curley, the swaggering, blustering, bragging son from the ranch owner, truly sets the stage for more violence and sadistic behavior targeted at not only George and Lennie but anyone who stands in his way or throws a glancing vision towards his attractive but whorish partner. During the time the moment George and Lennie will be waiting for the lunch bells, Curley enters the bunkhouse, ostensibly trying to find his dad but really just to analyze the new employed men. Following putting around to the guys that he is the master of the ranch, Curley leaves and Candy, the swamper who also sweeps the actual bunkhouse, warns George and Lennie regarding Curley’s state of mind and his enthusiasm to battle anyone who usurps his expert.

But in this instance, George could be considered as the instigator to the assault that follows, intended for he phone calls Curley’s partner “a rat-trap, a hoe, and a bit of jail-bait” (Goldhurst 130), and later fully conveys his disgust at Curley’s glove packed with vaseline, aimed at softening his hand when he stroke’s his wife’s genitalia. But again, Curley could have merely laughed by George and shrugged it off instead of using this instance as a springboard for more physical violence and sadism. Incidentally, when the other men in the bunkhouse taunt Curley about his wife’s wantonness and this individual spies Lennie grinning regarding it, Curley attacks Lennie whom at first really does nothing to protect himself due to George’s alert about his strength.

But, due to his imbecility, Lennie grabs Curley’s hand, normally the one with the petroleum jelly glove, and squeezes it, thereby crushing every bone fragments. But the most significant scene in Of Mice and Guys concerns the killing of Curley’s wife in the hvalp by Lennie. As the other workmen and George are pitching horseshoes outside the barn, Lennie suddenly understands that his puppy, directed at him by simply Slim, the jerkline skinner, is dead as a result of his seemingly delicate and blameless caresses.

As he sits down in the straw and bemoans the puppy’s fate, Curley’s wife quickly appears from around the corner in the stalls. Her flirtatious behavior at first does not affect Lennie and he doesn’t claim one term to her, fearing that he would not get to feed the rabbits which will George assured to him upon obtaining their own ranch. But Curley’s wife steadily manages to draw Lennie’s attention away from dead pup and starts a rather wondering incident–she talks him to stroke her hair which will he does as if the girl was just another plaything just like his dead puppy. While Lennie is constantly on the stroke the girl’s locks, she all of a sudden tries to take away which infuriates Lennie, specially when she starts to scream.

And just like the doggie, Lennie becomes a little to rough and breaks her neck without the awareness that she triggered her individual death, because of not knowing that Lennie can be nothing but a lumbering fool with the durability of a plow horse. According to Knutson J. Benson, this picture from Of Mice and Men contains images of big power and violence, for it makes “murder seem while natural and innocent as puppy love” (179). Like a very sizable child, Lennie amplifies the entire situation, intended for after getting rid of Curley’s better half, he flees to the grove near the Salinas River in the same way George acquired told him in case of any kind of “accidents” upon Lennie’s part.

But this time around, George appears to be the sadist, for Lennie begins to think about living in a cave if perhaps George decides he doesn’t want him around any longer. The final field in Of Mice and Men delivers the plan full group, for Lennie’s contradictory beliefs are then affirmed–his blameless, animal norms of behavior mixed with unfortunate humanity, his innocent longings for a coop full of rabbits which he can pet and tend to, great grim consciousness that his life may be nearing it is end. The moment Candy, the bunkhouse sweeper, finds Curley’s wife half-buried and rock dead inside the hay in the barn, he calls for George who gets a gun when Candy propagates the security alarm that the girl has been killed.

But when Curely is informed of his wife’s fatality, his sadistic tendencies arrive to a steam, for this individual realizes that Lennie is always to blame which usually sets into motion an absolute cycle of vengeance on the part of Curley and the other employed hands with the ranch. Having a loaded shotgun in hand, Curley and the different men start out in search of Lennie, the poor, stupid brute with a tendency intended for childish physical violence.

But it is usually George whom finds Lennie hiding in the bushes near to the Salinas River, and quickly makes up his mind to place an end to Lennie’s life, to punish him once again for “being a bad son. ” However for Lennie, badness is just a matter of opinion and taboos based upon the mind associated with an imbecile, not really consequences and responsibilities, intended for he is not concerned with about neither understand the death of Curley’s wife whom exists intended for him just as another dull puppy or possibly a mouse dead from excessive hard handling. In the realization of Steinbeck’s Of Rats and Males, George sets the muzzle of his gun directly to the backside of Lennie’s head and pulls the trigger, a task which fully supports and reinforces the violence in the novel.

Basically, all of the personas in Of Mice and Men seem to have been reared in violence; some are violent by nature, while some simply accept violent, sadistic behavior within the “normal” your life of a bum or a migrant farm worker. As Honest N. Magill so terribly observes, “both George and Lennie will be friendless and alone and prone to dangerous violence. Both are adolescents captured in a associated with chaos and rage” (2145), exactly as John Steinbeck intended it. In the words, these characters are present in “sweet violence” which will moves you to think about their confusing fates. �