Compare 'Silas Marner' and 'Of Mice and Men' and discuss the theme of Outsiders

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Compare ‘Silas Marner’ and ‘Of Mice and Men’ and discuss the theme of Outsiders

   This comparative reading assignment will compare two texts. ‘Silas Marner’ by George Eliot and ‘Of Mice and Men’ by John Steinbeck. ‘Silas Marner’ is a 19th century text set in England, taking place over a period of around forty years. ‘Of Mice and Men’ is a 20th century text set in California, taking place over a period of five days during the 1930’s, which was the beginning of the depression.

   Throughout the essay I will compare the main characters of each book and explore the idea in both books of how easy it was to be an outsider, as well as society’s role. I will also examine the reasons and consequences for this.

   Both books deal with many themes. ‘Silas Marner’ is a book full of betrayal, loneliness and friendship, mystery and crime. It is also a story of faith being lost and found again. This relates to ‘Of Mice and Men’ a great deal, as it too, is a book of mystery and crime, loneliness and friendship. However I feel that the main and most often occurring theme throughout both books, is change, and the theory that because something has not happened it will not.’

   George Eliot was the pen name for Mary Ann Evans a great English novelist. Much of her fiction relates to the middle class rural background of her childhood and youth. George Eliot wrote with sympathy, wisdom and realism about English country people in small towns. She wrote seriously about moral and social problems, but her characters are living portraits.

   John Steinbeck was an American author. Steinbeck’s best fiction sympathetically explores the struggles of poor people. He set much of his fiction in and around his birthplace of Salinas, Calif. ‘Of Mice and Men’ is taken from a poem by Robert Burns about a field mouse whose home is destroyed by ploughing.

   The language in ‘Silas Marner’ belongs to the middle 19th Century. It is formal and quite artificial and very different from modern day speech. In the 19th century people were very hypocritical about subjects on sex and violence. There was a great deal of child poverty and child prostitution. Authors could not openly express their feelings, as society preferred to keep these things hidden.

The language in ‘Of Mice and Men’ belongs to the middle of the twentieth century. It is very simple and rough. It is the language uneducated working laboring men who have probably never been to school for very long. This may be due to the depression.

  The depression began in 1929 when the American stock market crashed and sent the USA and most other countries into a disastrous economic depression. Businesses went bankrupt, workers were paid off and unemployment rocketed. Even banks and stock markets crashed. There was no money anywhere. Individuals could not meet their next rent payments and lost their homes as a result. Society suffered and went through a massive unemployment, poverty and despair. Society dictated much of how people acted and thought. Long periods of unemployment cause people to value security above all things.

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   Silas, the main character in ‘Silas Marner’ is an outsider, because he does not socialize with the other people in the community. They therefore feel that he is strange, as communities bonded a lot.      

   People immediately see Lennie, a character in ‘Of Mice and Men’ as an outsider when they meet him, as he was simple and slow. He is not clever and finds it hard to follow rules. Due to the depression, education was not regarded as important. George his partner, we see as the story unfolds is like a father to him. He ...

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