Of Mice and Men Theme Analysis Essay Example

The story “Of Mice And Men” by John Steinbeck shows the struggle of two vagrant farmworkers, Lennie and George, trying to survive during the economic crisis. John Steinbeck uses many themes in the story. Three themes he uses are the Meaning of friendship, Natural indifference, and loneliness and isolation for the migrant farmworkers. He uses those themes to cause understanding for his characters that were struggling to survive on a farm during the Great Depression. 

In the story “Of Mice And Men,” Natural indifference was one of the frequent themes used in the story. To give you an idea, he uses the quote  "I had ’im ever since he was a pup. God, he was a good sheepdog when he was younger." … Carlson said thoughtfully, "Well, looka here, Slim. I been thinkin'. That dog of Candy's is so God damn old he can't hardly walk. Stinks like hell, too…Why'n't you get Candy to shoot his old dog and give him one of the pups to raise up?” (Ch.2) This quote is showing that candy didn't care if his dog was too old. Most of all, he is saying that the dog is the one that made him happy even if he was struggling with things,  he was happy to have his dog with him. Even after the case, he struggled to give up his dog because he knew Carlson and them wanted to shoot his dog, which they did. A second Natural indifference used in the story is when Lennie was going through it when he killed Curley's wife. “And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie's head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he lay without quivering.” (Ch.6) He was struggling because he was trying to talk to him in a good way about rabbits and houses like he always tends to do. George was doing this and saying those things because he knew he was about to shoot Lennie without Lennie knowing he was about to get shot. That is showing George struggling.

Another common theme used in the story “Of Mice And Men,” was the theme Meaning of friendship. One quote he uses to show that is "I want you to stay with me, Lennie. Jesus Christ, somebody shoots you for a coyote if you were by yourself. No, you stay with me.” (Ch.1) This shows that George is trying to help Lennie from being mistaken for an animal by staying with him. This automatically showed the meaning of the friendship between the two of them because if it didn’t, George wouldn't care if Lennie stayed with him. Another example of the Meaning of friendship in the story is when George was talking to Lennie saying “George stood up. "We'll do her," he said. "We'll fix up that little old place an' we'll go live there." (Ch.3) This quote is showing how George is caring about Lennie's feelings and he's expecting to spend time with him forever until they can’t.

One of the last themes he uses is, the loneliness and isolation of the migrant farmworker. One quote used in the story is “A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make any difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya," he cried, "I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick." (Ch.4) This quote is showing how their loneliness works. This is telling us that we need to spend some time with people because if we stay lonely forever, things would happen to you. For example, like your mental health. He also uses this quote to represent their loneliness “Lennie said, "Well, I ain't supposed to talk to you or nothing." "I get lonely," she said. "You can talk to people, but I can't talk to anybody but Curley. Else he gets mad. How'd you like not to talk to anybody?” This is showing how curley's wife is persuading and telling lennie how she beens so lonely that she’s being hopeless. This is also showing how loneliness can make you hopeless and desperate and you can't be happy from that. She is also telling Lennie how she is being stuck just to talk to one person and one person only which is curley, and if you are being forced to talk to the same person for the rest of your life, that's just being hopeless. She doesn't have any opportunity to talk to different people who are masculine.