Book Essay

Of Mice and Men Essay

The book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck could have many themes. The one that I choose to concentrate on is work. The whole book is about working. From basically start to finish George and Lennie are working at everything. Their jobs on the ranch are very hardworking jobs. George and Lennie at the beginning never had a job. They were talking about getting a job at a ranch. So they got a job at a ranch. The other characters in the book like Candy, Curley, Slim, Crooks, and Carlson all worked on the ranch with George and Lennie. They would work every day. They all had different jobs that they had to work for to get money. Work is such an important part of life that maybe John Steinbeck is trying to get that across in his book.
As stated above, everybody in this book works towards something. The others that work on the farm, when they get paid, just go blow their money in town drinking and stuff. George and Lennie would always talk about working on the ranch and saving their money up and not going out to blow it all on drinking like the others do. They always talked about how they would buy a little house and have some land to themselves and how they were going to have pigs, cows, and Lennie wanted rabbits. Basically they are going to work hard so they can have a farm to live and work on. But it becomes clear that this will not happen until they work on their friendship.
Working on friendships can be challenging, maybe even more so then the hard physical labor of farm work. George always gets mad at Lennie when he does something stupid, but Lennie can’t help it. He thinks that Lennie is getting in his way and interfering in his life. He says that life would be a lot easier without Lennie. Lennie feels like George hates him and that he should leave George alone and go live in the hills somewhere. So they have to work on friendship with each other and the other people at the ranch. But at the end, everyone’s hard work for friendship with Lennie falls apart when he kills Curley’s wife. His work for friendship with George is done when George shoots Lennie.
So why does George shoot Lennie after all they have been through together? Maybe it’s to work on what he really wants in life. Maybe life would be much easier for him without Lennie. He wouldn’t have to work as hard because he doesn’t have to take care of Lennie. He can work on his goals and dreams. Maybe one of his dreams is to see his friend Lennie happy and he knew he could never be happy by himself here on earth anymore.
I think there is a saying that goes, “no one ever said work was easy.” Everyone in this story is always working on friendship, working on the ranch, and working to get what they want in life. Everyone in this book was working at something to get somewhere or to get something. I think that this book is telling you that if you work hard then some things could succeed and others things can fail. When we work hard we sometimes get what we want and sometimes we don’t.
By: Kevin Vermillion