Of Mice and Men "What happens at the end of this novel shows that Steinbeck's view of life is a pessimistic and negative one."

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Arnoldus A. Nedwika

11JL

Of Mice and Men

“What happens at the end of this novel shows that Steinbeck’s view of life is a pessimistic and negative one.”

        By the end of the novel tragedy struck the hopeful couple Lenny and George, as once again Lenny have “done a real bad thing.” He accidentally killed his little puppy, not knowing that it would “get killed that easily”. It really wasn’t his fault, for it “ain’t little as mice”, though it “wasn’t big enough” of a puppy either to be kept outside its mother’s reach. And if that wasn’t bad enough, on that same day he viciously killed Curley’s wife. In the barn she was consoling her loneliness by talking to Lenny in a “passion of communication”. With pleasure she talks of her dreams and of her life, about how her life would be if she “made somethin’ of herself”. How she was said to be a “natural” in movies and how her “ol’ lady stole” letters from a guy she knew that “was in pitchers”. Her dream dies as with her body as Lenny tries to shut her up. Not knowing his own strength he breaks her neck after she struggles to break free, and “her body flopped like a fish”, as Curley did when he tried to let go of his hand from Lennie’s strong grasp. As soon as Candy and George discovers the unlawful act that Lenny has done, they try to reason with his actions and find the best action that should be taken against him. Pessimistically George wants to “get ‘im an’ lock ‘im up”, for his own good so he won’t “starve” to death. In the end George decided to kill Lenny, for he thinks that if anyone should lynch Lenny, it should him that would kill Lenny, mercifully.

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        I agree with the statement that Steinbeck’s opinion on life by the end of the novel is a pessimistic and negative point of view. By pessimistic I mean that he has a tendency to stress the adverse aspects of a situation, in this case expecting the worst possible outcome in life. Negative, meaning he expresses denial, refusal, prohibition, bad, or evil things in general.

        

        The ending of this novel in my opinion is very tragic, having three deaths occur in one day which not only does it represents physical death, but also emotional death. I see death ...

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