Of Mice and Men Discrimination

Discrimination Essay Discrimination and prejudice references in the book, Of Mice and Men, reflect on the several characters lives. The biggest impacts of discrimination take its rest on Candy, Crooks, Lennie, and Curley’s wife. All of them are discriminated for different reasons. People are treated worse by the ranch simply because they are different. Candy is one of the oldest workers on the ranch and struggles to keep up with the pace of the other workers. The other workers are younger, stronger, and more energetic than Candy. Many of the ranch hands get mad at him and call him, “Good for nothing. They talk behind his back at what a bad worker he is. Candy only having one hand slows him down ever more so. Candy knows that his days are coming and feels like he can’t keep up. Added onto his discrimination, is his “best friend” attitude towards his old, smelly dog. He tells the ranch that the dog has been working with him since he was a pup. He was the best dog he ever had. However, the workers say that the dog smells so bad that they have to leave whenever he’s in Bunk House. This eventually leads up to the point until Carlson tells Candy he must take the dog outside where he will end his misery.
Candy, after much persuasion, lets Carlson take the dog away where it is shot. Candy falls into a melancholy because his best friend died. He feels closer to death than ever and then halts his work. Candy’s final summation of discrimination leaves him depressed and friendless. Lennie and George are his best buds since his dog was shot, but they don’t compare. Discrimination takes all the life and sweetness away from Candy. Crooks, being the only black man on the ranch gets some of the most discrimination. Being the 1930’s, blacks were still considered to be unequal and not as smart as white people.
Many prejudice thoughts were fired right at Crooks. Crooks is the ranch’s stable man. He works, sleeps, and lives in the stables. Crook also is handicap because a horse kicked him in the back leaving him in a permanent hunched position. Crooks is a great example showing his strength with his mind-over-matter defense. Ranch hands ridicule him but he chooses what he lets bother him and simply ignores them. He is a wise old man that likes his space. He lives separate from everyone else on the ranch. The only people he ever let in his room was Lennie and Slim.

He felt a deep connection with Lennie, he felt his innocence. This was the only reason he let him in. When Slim came along, he told Lennie that this was the first time he was ever allowed in Crook’s room in years. Crooks is isolated from the workers and is not allow at the main building in the ranch, the Bunk House. The only time we saw him hanging out with the workers besides in the stable was on Christmas when he went out drinking whiskey with them. Crooks is a likable character because he deals with discrimination so well. It almost seems as though he’s had so much of it, that he is immune to it now.
Discrimination is definitely showed to Crooks but Crooks doesn’t show any back. Lennie is the perfect target of discrimination throughout the entire book. Everywhere he goes, he is harassed and made fun of. This is to blame to his mental retardation. Being from the 1930’s make it even worse because people didn’t know that he needed help rather than insults. Countless characters take their anger out on Lennie. His biggest enemy is Curley. Curley naturally hates big people because he’s jealous. When Lennie arrives on the ranch he instigates with him immediately.
The boss also questions why he doesn’t talk. George takes his side all the time, which is why Lennie always looks up to him. George is there for Lennie when other people don’t understand. However, this puts a lot of stress on George and he eventually lets it out at the campfire when Lennie insists on having ketchup with his beans. What Lennie lacks in intelligence, he has a surplus of in muscle and his great amount of work that he gets done. This saves him from being picked on for being dumb and weak. At least he can defend himself; at least when George is there to tell him.
In an optimistic way of looking at it, at least Lennie didn’t die from discrimination abuse but rather lack of confidence and stupidity. The final character that was discriminated was Curley’s wife. From the very first time we meet her, she was considered a tart. All the men on the ranch treated her disrespectfully because she was the sole woman on the ranch. All the men ignored her because they thought she was trashy. They occasionally cracked jokes between Curley and her. Although she wasn’t treated well, sometimes she asked for it.
She was very flirty with many of the workers even though she was married. It always seemed like Curley was looking for his wife or vice-versa. She showed her loneliness by trying to talk with George and Lennie. George was like the rest of the workers and paid no attention to her. Lennie likes to talk to her but George warns him. Eventually, when Curley’s wife lets Lennie pet her hair, he gets nervous and accidentally kills her. The discrimination lead her to someone she could talk to, Lennie, which in turn, killed her. This novel teaches the reader several things about discrimination.
Most of the books events were based off a discriminating act. It seemed like these ranchers were all mad at someone and wanted to get the blame out on the person they thought were different whether it be Lennie or Crooks or whoever. Discrimination takes its toll on people even if you don’t realize it. It can hurt people who might not know what discrimination means. You should never discriminate anyone based on his or her appearance, intelligence or differences because everyone is different. Everyone has his or her own opinions and beliefs.
Steinbeck wants people to see that you are just as different as anyone else and you should learn how to live and flourish in that environment than rather put people down and hate. People are treated worse by the ranch simply because they are different. The discrimination in the ranch took a toll on everyone affected by it. If people were more accepting and aware, people’s lives could have been saved. Steinbeck shows the audience how they can learn and change by noticing how people are affected by discrimination even if they don’t show it in front of you. Discrimination only brings problems and life would be better without it.