Summary

Characters

George - A short and thin man. Is Lennie's best friend and takes care of him even though he is always making him feel like a idiot. He is the one who killed Lennie at the end of the novel. 

Lennie - A gigantic and strong man with a mental disability. He travels with his best friend George to different farms to work. He is always thinking about rabbits and the land that him and George are going to get. 

Candy - A old man who lost his hand and thinks he is going to get fired soon because he isn't able to do much.

Curley -  A short man the son of the boss he is recently married he likes to show off about his wife.

Curley's Wife - A lonely and isolated girl who never gets to talk to her husband. She likes to flirt a lot.

Slim - The nice and kind man who understands George and Lennie.

Whit - A Hard worker on the ranch

Carlson - A strong man who is good worker

The Land

Lennie always dreamed about going to tend the rabbits and and having a nice amount of land where no one would tell them what to do and they would just living off the fatta' the land which would make it a complete utopia. One time Candy heard them talk about the land so he wanted to be involved with them. The Land  is the whole reason for the death of Curley's wife because he only killed her to make sure he didn't get in any trouble with George and they still get the land. Lennie's disability prevented him from knowing that.

Mental Disability in our World Today

Taken advantage of.

Mental disabilities affects at the most every 3 per 100 people living in North America. It makes people take advantage of them because they do not know or properly understand what is going on in their surroundings. This is shown when George is always telling Lennie about the rabbits and the land "that they are going to get" with Lennie not knowing the truth George uses this to make Lennie shut up when he needs him to.

Has been used in different cartoons.

The idea  of a gigantic man with a mental disability wanting to pet rabbits but ends up crushing them has been used in many cartoons such as the "Looney Tunes." 

 

 

Effects of Mental Retardation.

Mental retardation is categorized in different classes of IQ(intelligence quotient). Patients are diagnosed with Mental Retardation when their IQ is below the Borderline intellectual functioning Class of 0f 70. Many People with Mental Retardation experience the symptoms of delays in learning, difficulty remembering and difficulty with social skills. They usually have  speech problems when talking.  

The difficulties encountered because of Mental Disability

Mental disabilities limits and isolates Lennie the novel.


There are many times where Lennie is just left out from hanging out or doing things with the other men because they do not want anything from Lennie because he has problems. A good example of this is when George (Lennie's Friend) keeps sending Lennie out of the room when he talks to the other workers. Since this novel is taking place in the dark ages of the Great Depression people may not have known that Lennie was a victim of Mental Illness. Another good example of this being displayed in Steinbeck's novel is when George just thinks that Lennie is stupid and he may not now that he is suffering from Mental Disability.

Lennie's murders caused because of mental disability.

Lennie only killed the mice and Curley's wife because of his mental illness. This illness caused him to not know the true meanings or understandings of death. He had problems that made him believe that he could not let them get herd screaming or else he was not going to get to tend to the rabbits which is what he always wanted.