Of Mice and Men - Essay 29

“By ourselves we can enjoy life, but to really appreciate life we must find companionship.” This anonymous quote is a universal theme throughout John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. One can find many examples of companionship while reading this novel. Some examples are the main characters George and Lennie, Curley and his wife, and Candy and his dog. Mixed in the depths of these relationships are many conflicts which can be reflected between each pair of characters, showing Steinbeck’s unique use of parallelism. Steinbeck’s novel demonstrates the theory of Darwinism, “survival of the fittest,” along with many other literary devices such as a unique use of foreshadowing and a persistent use of parallelism can all be found in the relationships of George and Lennie, Curley and his wife and Candy and his dog, although all these relationships have different aspects.

George and Lennie show a form of companionship that can be classified as human friendship. George and Lennie have a unique bond that keeps them together. It is based on several different emotions such as quilt, and dependency. In the novel, George tells a story of when he used to pick on Lennie and he would just take it and never fight back but when Lennie’s Aunt Clara dies George ends up taking care of him and they have been stuck together ever since.   George needs to stay with Lennie because of a need for
companionship and the fact that he has been with him his whole life while Lennie needs George because he had a mental problem and cannot physically take care of himself and keep a job during the time period. Because George takes care of Lennie and Lennie is dependent upon him, George is the dominant figure in the relationship and Lennie is the weaker person in the relationship.

Curley and his wife are a perfect example of a husband and wife relationship in the time period the novel is set. Similar to George and Lennie’s relationship, Curley and his wife have many reasons as to why they were brought...