Lennie And George example essay topic

In any society there are always outsiders, people who are unaccepted or excluded from the community. People are outsiders by choice, or by the way they treat or are treated by others. The outsiders who are treated unfairly by others, are usually treated this way because they are different in one way or another from the rest of the community, for example a person from an ethnic minority in a white society, or maybe just because they are disabled or act different to others. Many novelists from different backgrounds and different centuries have looked at the theme of outsiders in their books. I am looking at the novels written by John Steinbeck and Charles Dickens. John Steinbeck wrote the novel "Of mice and men" and we are focusing on the characters Lennie, Crooks and Curley's wife from this book.

From Charles Dickens novel "A Christmas carol" we are only focusing on one character, "Scrooge". All these characters are cut off from society for different reasons. "Of mice and men" is set in America in the 1930's. The whole book is based on the life of a migrant worker and the great depression.

Lennie and George are typical migrant workers. They have one thing that is different to the other migrant workers, they have each other, and they travel round together looking for work, and stick together through thick and thin, when all the other migrant workers travel alone, only considering themselves. George sticks with Lennie for a reason, which is because Lennie is a man with a child's mind and needs looking after, another reason which you don't find out till later in the book is because of Lennie's aunt Clara, when she died she asked George to look after Lennie and make sure he doesn't get himself into trouble! Lennie is not at all bright "he's dumb as hell but he ain't crazy", And he relies on George to make all the decisions for him, he copies George, and does what ever he tells him too. He looks up to him as if George was the father and he was his son. Lennie loves to pet things that are soft, and he kills some mice because he petted them too hard.

When he is on the ranch, and he has his puppy, he gets himself into trouble by killing the little pup, "you ain't as little as mice, I didn't bounce you hard" He doesn't really realise how strong he actually is. Lennie is cut off from the society for having a child's mind, from the start of the book the things Lennie does, you can kind of predict the things he is going to do next. When Curley's wife offers for him to feel her soft hair it is obvious that he won't be able to resist, when he touches it he says "oh that's nice" because he likes the feel so much he finds himself unable to let go, she screams and he becomes frightened, he finds himself trying to shut her up, "Lennie was in a panic, his hands closed over her mouth and nose, please don't do that George will be mad" He kills her and then realises what he has done he runs to where George told him to go if he ever got in trouble, "Hide in the brush" George said, Lennie did this so George knew exactly where to look for him, so he could get to him before Curley did, when George finds Lennie, he knew exactly what he has to do, he calms Lennie down by telling him about their dream, and then shoots him in the back of the head, he did his final act of friendship by saving Lennie from the torture of Curley and his gang. Crook's is the "Negro" stable buck, he is crippled and in a lot of pain everyday, Crook's is an outsider because of this.

He is "a proud aloof man" who keeps his distance from people and wants a lot of privacy "I ain't wanted in the bunk house and you ain't wanted in my room". He is extremely lonely, and would do anything for someone to accept him and be his friend, or even just someone he could trust, to talk to "a guy gets so lonely, he gets sick". He knows no one has respect for him because he is black "If I say something it's just a nigger saying it". All he wants is someone to make him feel not alone in world, someone who understands how he feels.

He has his dreams but not of the future but about the past, when people took care of him, and he didn't feel different and odd because they were the same as him. Crook's also feels threatened because if anyone accuses him of something, even if he didn't do it, they wouldn't believe him because he is black, for example when Curley's wife threatens to tell everyone he raped her, he couldn't do nothing, because he new they would believe her over him, because she is white. Curley's wife is very pretty, feminine, made-up and flirtatious. Candy says she has "got the eye". Because she is the only female on a male ranch, she is an outsider, and is very lonely "why can't I talk to you I get awful lonely" the men on the ranch don't take her seriously and just think of her as a tart. Her marriage to Curley is disastrous and it has only been two weeks "Curley ain't a nice man" she says, but i think she stays with him because if she don't, she will have nothing.

She has her dreams of how she could have been in the movies, or on stage, and people would look at her and admire her, and want to be just like her "Coulda been in the movies and had nice clothes". Just like Lennie her part ends in tragedy she is killed because she is flirting and being her usual self towards Lennie, Lennie kills her by accident because she asked him to feel her hair. A Christmas carol is set in England, when there is poverty and suffering, among the working classes. Charles Dickens believes the rich have a responsibility to the poor, however the poor are not the outsiders here, because the Cratchitts family are poor but they still have each other, and it is the same in most poor families, they are all very close and love each other and just because they have not a lot of money it doesn't make them no different to anyone else.

Scrooge is the main character in "a Christmas carol" he is an outsider because he doesn't want to belong "warning all human sympathy to keep his distance", he doesn't want to be the same as everybody else. Scrooges home describes a lot about him it "dark"melancholy" and "gloomy" and his character is a lot the same, he hates Christmas, "every idiot that goes about with merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding", he is mean and greedy about money "tight-fisted", he absolutely refuses to give money to the poor, no matter if they were starving, or dying, "I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry". He is not happy about his clerk for having the day off at Christmas "it's not convenient and it's not fair", all he basically thinks about is himself. He has also turned his back on his family, he has excluded everyone from his life, when his nephew says, "why can't we be friends" scrooge simple says "good afternoon". Because of the way he acts, he is going to be visited by Marley's ghost, who has come on a mission to change scrooge before its to late and he ends up like him (bound up in a heavy chain and weighed down with cash boxes, keys etc "I wear the chain I made in life, I forged it link by link", and then he told Scrooge he was going to be visited by three more ghosts who act as his conscience and will scare him into changing himself for the better.

The ghost of Christmas past is sent to try and make him realise that he become an outsider because of his childhood experiences, the ghost comes at exactly one in the morning, the figure is wearing a white tunic with holly in its hand, and the entire ghost is covered in flowers, Scrooge follows the ghost and the ghost shows him a child in a school room "a solitary child, neglected by his friends is left there" when Scrooge sees the boy he begins to weep, and he tells the ghost that he turned a young boy, who was lonely and neglected away from his door only last night, he is then taken to the boarding school where his dad placed him when he was little, and then he is shown him when he was an apprentice of a man called Fizziwig, Fizziwig is the sort of employer that they want scrooge to be "no more work tonight, Christmas-eve lets have a party", and the final thing the ghost shows Scrooge is a clip of him, when he was a young man and his fianc " ee, he is late to meet her, because he had work to do and she breaks off the engagement because of this "you measure everything by gain", and then he sees her in the future she is really happy with a husband and a happy family her husband says to her "I saw you old friend Scrooge today, he is quite alone in the world i believe". The ghost of Christmas present wakes Scrooge by calling his name, Scrooge sees a roaring fire and a big Christmas feast, then quick as a flash it all disappears and Scrooge is alone in the dark, he is taken to Bob Cratchitts house where they are making the most of Christmas, Bob Cratchitts son tiny Tim is very ill and Scrooge asks if he will live, "I see a vacant seat and a seat, and a crutch without an owner, if these shadows remain unaltered, by the future this child will die". Scrooge is taken away from the Cratchitts house and taken to his nephews, the family are enjoying Christmas and are laughing at Scrooge's expense "he is such a ridiculous fellow, I feel sorry for him", he is then shown two children who are weak, ill, starving and nearly dead, "they are man's children. This boy is ignorance. This girl is want.

Beware them both", Scrooge is disgusted with the sight of this and is even more disgusted when the ghost repeats his own words "are there any workhouses?" The ghost of Christmas yet to come is a phantom all dressed in black, he takes Scrooge to a group of men discussing a funeral they are laughing and saying things like the would only go if there was a free lunch, the ghost then leads Scrooge to a poor part of town where second hand goods are being sold, a woman called Mrs Dibble is saying "if he wanted to keep his things after he was dead, why wasn't he natural in his life time" and "he frightened everyone away from himself when he was alive so he could profit us when he was dead", Scrooge is then taken back to Bob Cratchitts house where tiny Tim has died and the family are grieving, Scrooge is taken away from the house and then taken to the graveyard where he shown his own grave stone and he realises it was his stuff Mrs Dibble was selling, he is shocked at all this and begs the spirit to give him a chance telling him he will change, "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all year, I will live in the past, the present and the future, I will not shut out the lessons that they teach". Scrooge has changed for the best and is now a happy, generous man he gives lots of money to the poor, sends a big turkey to the Cratchitts and asks to dine with his nephew. "He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city knew" Steinbeck and Dickens have explored the outsider theme in different ways, Dickens has a happy ending for Scrooge who wants and tries to be accepted instead of excluding himself from the society. At the end there are no outsiders, and everyone is happy, and in Steinbeck novel the outsiders stay outsiders and it is a very tragic ending for them. Both novelists have looked at it differently and have explored the meaning of outsider in different ways.