Of Mice and Men - Essay 27

“Power is a kind of self belief, a feeling of self worth”

Discuss.
Sample Introduction 1: It is true that power is a kind of self-belief but Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men shows that without others to sustain us and encourage us we find it difficult to believe in ourselves and our dreams. In this way power and companionship are closely connected. Symbolism, setting and the foreshadowing of each little setback for the two central protagonists until the final tragedy of Lennie’ death is part of the novel’s structure. A structure which lends the narrative its sense of looming failure.

Sample intro 2: When we witness Lennie, at the end of novel, return to the same quiet sanctuary on the riverbank of the Salinas River, where the narrative opened, we recognize that Steinbeck is alluding to the hopeless struggle that these men face to change their lives for the better, to move forward. We identify the extent to which symbolism, foreshadowing and verbal patterns reflect the inevitability of the lives of these lonely, down trodden, powerless men. But we see also when hope and the power to change their lives surfaces for a few brief moments the importance of self-belief and companionship for that belief.

Sample intro 3: The ironic title of Steinbeck’s novel drawn from a poem by Robbie Burns alludes to a field mouse whose well thought out plans are doomed from the start because he builds where the plough will destroy them. It is the first hint that the two protagonists, Lennie and George have no hope of success. But the novel rather than pointing to the hand of fate as the cause of their failure shows that the powerless of these men stems from their unwillingness to share and care for each other. (You must refer to this in your conclusion if you use this introduction – i.e the men’s inability to change, in partucular Lennie’s inability to stop himself, really dooms them all.   Lennie, however, is symbolic of all men’s weakness and their weaknesses or obsessions –...