Explore and compare the characters, achievements and deaths of Lennie Small, from John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men' and Bill Sikes from, Charles Dickens 'Oliver Twist'.

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. Tom Savage

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In this essay I will explore and compare the characters, achievements and deaths of Lennie Small, from John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ and Bill Sikes from, Charles Dickens ‘Oliver Twist’.

        I have read both novels and enjoyed them immensely because of the wonderful characters, language and techniques used by the authors especially when describing the worlds they conjured within their novels. These two books also express perfectly the pioneering views of Dickens and Stienbeck; they both used their writings in an attempt to make their socialist views subtly heard by the masses. In the eras of Dickens and also Steinbeck, problems such as, racism, sexism, poverty and the class divide were simply accepted by society. These two authors saw the problems of their social structures, the discriminative attitudes of the people and wanted to make the public aware, being greatly frowned upon by some. Dickens and Steinbeck were soldiers of the same struggle and that is where the similarities between ‘Of Mice and Men’ and ‘Oliver Twist’ begin.

        Most of the characters in both novels represent the poverty that plagued both countries at the time the books were set, especially George and Lennie in ‘Of Mice and Men’; the epitome of poverty in the USA. Their lives are an endless trek around California constantly looking for work, scratching a buck or two a day from the back breaking work they do on the ranches. The poverty Oliver lives in (and that Dickens also experienced as a youth) is just the same, with a different back drop, which is why these novels relate so well to each other. Where these two stories really raise a lot of similarities, but at the same time a lot of paradoxes, are definitely the murder scenes and the deaths of the killers themselves. The characters and situations appear to be very alike, but once you read deeper you can see the differences that sneak through.

            Lennie Small is a very big, powerful, strong man; Steinbeck describes him as a bull. Sikes is also a large burley fellow, but where Sikes is pure evil, Lennie is childish, innocent and inhibited, a man who entirely relies on someone else to guide him, like a dog and master; their personalities are almost an antithesis. They are like this to bring out certain emotions in the reader to make us feel, hatred towards Sikes (and ultimately satisfaction when he dies), but sympathy, love and empathetic humour for Lennie. Their victims, on the other hand, are almost identical; Nancy is a prostitute and, in a way, so is Curley’s wife; she gives her body to Curley in exchange for marriage and money. We have to feel sorry for Curley’s wife when she when she confesses her sins to Lennie in the barn and the unfortunate way she has been mistreated and abused in the past. The sad thing is she is so naïve that she doesn’t realise. She confesses that she doesn’t love or even like Curley:

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        “I don’ like Curley. He ain’t a nice fella…” is exactly what she says to Lennie, something she has never told anyone. Nancy also repents before she dies and pleas with Bill to do so too:

        “… let us both leave this dreadful place, and far apart lead better lives… It is never too late to repent.” She even breathes a short prayer of mercy before she dies. In actual fact the whole reason Sikes kills Nancy is because she has been trying to do the lawful, honest thing and try to work her way out of this life of ...

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