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Introduction

In 'Of Mice and Men' Steinbeck presents his characters as being weak & strong. Using 2 characters write about them and how they are represented. 'Of Mice and Men' the characters are represented with many strengths and weaknesses. The two main characters, George and Lennie are mainly used to represent these things. The strengths and weaknesses are either physical, the characters morals or character traits. Depending on each character the strengths are either more than the weaknesses or the same...but why is that? One of the main characters Lennie has an obvious strength which is his physical strength, "strong as a bull". He is big and able to protect himself and George. As Lennie and George travel a lot on the highway his strength and size meant no one would try to harm him or George. Lennie is compared to animals so him being animal-like he has animal instincts and animal cunning. Even though Lennie isn't smart he uses animal cunning to manipulate George and get away with it. ...read more.

Middle

George also has a dream, the American Dream "have a little house and a couple of acres an a cow and some pigs", that dream keeps him going as he knows what it's like having something of your own so is working to make that dream come true. Unlike other ranch men George isn't lonely as he has Lennie so stops him from going mad and becoming bitter. George's strengths represent a typical person's strength that many have but not all, for example Crooks isn't white so instead of his race being a strength it is a weakness. For weaknesses Lennie is the opposite of George, he isn't very smart as he has the mentality of a child which is a strength as well as a weakness. Lennie is a child like character who can't reason, Lennie never wants to 'get into trouble' so ends up doing bad things unintentionally. Lennie also forgets important things like vital information and things he is meant to learn from. ...read more.

Conclusion

Also George is afraid of being alone; he wants someone to look out for him which is why he stays with Lennie. As he doesn't want to be alone George doesn't realise that Lennie is a danger risk to others and leaves him alone twice in the novel. George seems to be blind to the fact that Lennie is dangerous to others but as well as he doesn't want to be lonely he wants a life as well. However it's shown that George does know that Lennie is dangerous, "I should of knew" he always knew Lennie was going to do something bad but wanted Lennie's company until that bad thing happened. In conclusion Steinbeck uses the two main characters to represent his ideas of strengths and weaknesses to get the message across clearly. The characters who go around together are almost complete opposites who surprisingly get on well with each other. Steinbeck uses them to show that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses whether it be physical, moral values or character traits everyone is different. Also Lennie's strength of not being prejudice shows that everyone is equal. ...read more.

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