Similarities Between Of Mice And Men And The Merchant Of Venice

People are often encouraged to promote and work towards their self interests, however when a persons self interests don't coincide with what is considered good, it can create a problem. In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, the poem "Power" by Corrine Hales, and the play The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, the characters struggle to show empathy and instead choose to promote their own interests, which ends up causing problems for them. Lack of empathy will often come back around and hurt you, as displayed by Curley, the siblings from “Power,” and Shylock.

In the novel Of Mice and Men, the character Curley puts his self interests of proving his masculinity before feeling empathetic for his wife. Since Curley is a smaller
Antonio and Shylock have made a deal that if Antonio does not pay back a certain sum of money by a certain day, Shylock will be allowed to cut a pound of Antonio's flesh from a place of his choice. Unfortunately for Antonio, the ships containing his possessions got wrecked at sea and he is unable to pay Shylock back in time. They meet in a court where Bassanio, Antonio’s best friend and possible love interest, offers to pay Shylock twice the sum of the original bond. Even after Bassanio offers to pay twice the amount of the bond, Shylock still refuses to show empathy. When Shylock says, “i want it” it is evident that he wasn’t considering how Antonio felt, he was only thinking about how to get what he wanted. In the end, Shylocks lack of empathy came back to bite him when he was told that he could only cut Antonio's flesh as long as he didn’t draw any blood. Since that is impossible, Shylock did not get the pound of flesh, which is what he wanted. If Shylock had empathized with Antonio and accepted Bassanios offer, he would have been better off than he was when he