The Contribution That Carlson and Candy Make To Of Mice And Men

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The Contribution That Carlson and Candy Make To Of Mice And Men

Of Mice and Men contains many disabled people including Carlson and Candy who are both disabled themselves, however in different ways; firstly, Candy has only one hand and is in one of the lower societies especially since he is an old swamper (cleaner), p.69 “Old Candy, the swamper”. In addition, even though it is not mentioned in the book, there are a few hints to prove Carlson is emotionally disabled.

Carlson’s emotional disability is shown on occasions such as at the end of the book where the group find Curley’s wife’s corpse and Carlson offers his luger (gun) to shoot Lennie, p.133 “I’ll get my luger”, therefore showing he has no emotion towards Lennie or George as well as not understanding relationships and the effect death can have. Another scenario where Carlson didn’t understand relationships or death was when he went to shoot Candy’s dog and Slim had to tell him to p.75“take a shovel” meaning Carlson should bury Candy’s dog in respect, this shows that Carlson did not recognize the effect of the loss of the dog as a companion to Candy. Slim is different and has emotion such as at the end of the book when Slim comforts George. However, Carlson doesn’t understand why George is so upset and says “Now, what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them two guys?” on p.149

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The reason why Carlson has no emotions and has difficulty understanding relationships is because he does not have a proper relationship himself and has lost all emotions; this is because he works on the ranch for a month to get his $50 to go to the whore house. He repeats this cycle every month going from ranch to ranch because he has nothing else to do. This helps illustrate John Steinbeck’s ideas to criticize The American Dream (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness).

Candy on the other hand has had proper relationships and emotions, as I mentioned . Carlson ...

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