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Ignorance In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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Ignorance and Mistakes Move Forward the Lives of Mankind
Most authors choose to have their characters represent more than what they appear on the outside. In the Harry Potter Series, Harry, who was the main character, represented more than just a youth; represents the hope that people need in their lives and that often people are capable of surprisingly great things. In the literary classic, Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck uses the character Lennie, who is portrayed as very hazardous and ignorant man to explain that the human nature of our society as primitive, oblivious and destined to cause trouble.
Though endearing at times, Lennie has a major flaw, getting into trouble. This flaw drives the story along, as it does in the lives of people in …show more content…
George described this event, saying: “Dumb bastard like he is, he wants to touch ever’thing he likes [...] so he reaches out to feel this red dress [...] and that gets Lennie all mixed up, and he holds on ‘cause that’s the only thing he can think to do” (Steinbeck 41). In this quote, there is repetition in the action of touching, which shows its importance. This repeated action shows how Lennie’s first instinct is to act in this manner. In our society, a major component of respect is how you touch people. You won’t normally go up and hug a random stranger. Rather than reaching out to people with words and conversation, Lennie immediately moves to physical reaching out, which would be a mistake in a world where impressions are everything. Then in the hours upon arriving at the ranch, Lennie has already made another drastic mistake when Curley began to attack him. “Curley’s fist was swinging when Lennie reached out for it. The next minute Curley was flopping like a fish on a line, and his closed fist was lost in Lennie’s big hand” (Steinbeck 62). Curley is delineated in this quote with a simile of being like a fish, described as flopping about and struggling. Simply upon reading these words, the reader feels …show more content…
“If I was alone, I could live so easy [...] You get me in trouble. You do bad things, and I have to get you out” (Steinbeck 12). George just explains how the trouble follows him everywhere, as troubles do for most humans. There is a famous poem called Paradise Lost, that was written by John Milton, which inspired John Steinbeck to write Of Mice and Men. This poem describes the first mistake in Christian bibliography, the Fall of Adam and Eve. They lived in the Garden of Eden not knowing what was evil because they had not experienced what was good. They then took fruit from the tree of knowledge. By doing so, they had gone against what they had been told and could finally understand right from wrong. As a consequence, they were cast out into the world. If Lennie is written after the workings of this text, then it is easy to see the parallels. He did not know right from wrong, other than what George told him to do. He was innocent. Then, the lack of knowledge allowed mistakes to

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