Family In Desiree's Baby, Of Mice And Men, And The Lottery

The theme of family is everywhere in life, be it in books, television shows, and even in a person’s actual life. It is something that everyone comes in contact with, and reads about, every once in awhile. Family is a rather popular theme in people’s lives. It can be seen on the streets, on television shows, in movies, and even in books and stories, just like the four short stories in this paper. Family will be present in almost all of the American literature stories, so it is not hard to pick stories with this particular theme in it. However in “Desiree’s Baby,” Of Mice and Men, “Wagner Matinee,” and “The Lottery,” family seemed to be more prominent throughout the story.
People say that a mother loves her family and child no matter what the
Steinbeck shows the types of obstacles a family can face, blood related or not. Steinbeck also shows an example of the difficult decisions that have to be made at times. According to Elizabeth Lawrence’s writing on the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute website, “The American social vision as represented in our literature is unique in its perception of the family in that it has represented the family to be a model of the greater society at large” (Lawrence). However, this is not the case in the story Of Mice and Men. In Of Mice and Men, even though George and Lennie are not blood related, they still care and look out for each other like a family should do. George is always there for Lennie whenever he gets in trouble and always tries to do what is best for Lennie, even if it means hurting his feelings a little in the process. One example of the caring and complicated side of family that is shown in this story, is when Lennie breaks Curley’s hand. Even though Lennie does not want to hurt Curley, George pushes Lennie to stop him, knowing that Lennie stopping Curley is the best thing in that situation After Lennie breaks Curley’s hand, the more caring side is shown by George cleaning the blood off of Lennie’s face, and telling him he is not in trouble for hurting Curley. At the end of the story, George is given a hard decision to make with what to do with Lennie after he accidentally kills Curley’s wife. Instead of turning Lennie in or letting Curley torture and kill Lennie, George goes to the spot where he told Lennie to hide if anything goes wrong. George then proceeds to make Lennie happy by telling him to think of the farm house they ar, finally kills him painlessly by shooting him in the back of the head. This ties into the theme of family because George cared for Lennie so much that he could not bare to see someone else kill Lennie. Even though the theme of family