The title is Empathy, and it talks about how different characters and alleviate empathy from the readers. The conclusion sums up how empathy can be attained, and how it can ideally be doled out.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, a famous Enlightenment philosopher, one said, "We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced." We as humans inevitably feel empathy towards people who have realistic fears and realistic hopes. We can understand the pain they feel because we have gone through it too. In the riveting novella, Of Mice and Men¸ John Steinbeck creates extremely realistic characters who reflect people we see in our everyday world. The characters have the same fears and suffer the same pains, and thus, we can sympathize with them. The two main characters, George and Lennie, live during the Great Depression and wander around looking for ranch work, but when they finally find a ranch, they meet many different kinds of people. These various characters all have their own quirks, but the amount of empathy they receive from the reader varies based on the actions they take. Curley's insecurities achieve no empathy from the reader. Candy's fear achieves immense amounts of empathy. And lastly, George's actions and motivations lead to a very unexpected twist. Throughout the novel, George, Candy, and Curley each have insecurities, motivations, and dreams, and while they may share certain human frailties, they are not all equally successful at achieving empathy and support from the reader.
Curley's dreams are powered by his inner motivation of insecurity; however, he is extremely unsuccessful in attaining the reader's empathy. Curley is a boxer who is more diminutive in stature than most men. Because of this, he is not content with his size. Thus, he picks on people bigger than himself to prove his strength, "'Curley's pretty handyCurley's like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys. He's alla time picking scraps with big guys. Kind of like he's mad at 'em because he ain't a big guy'" (26). He dreams of being able to assert his authority and superiority and thus assuage his insecurity, and because of this, he feels the need to over establish his
Curley's dreams are powered by his inner motivation of insecurity; however, he is extremely unsuccessful in attaining the reader's empathy. Curley is a boxer who is more diminutive in stature than most men. Because of this, he is not content with his size. Thus, he picks on people bigger than himself to prove his strength, "'Curley's pretty handyCurley's like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys. He's alla time picking scraps with big guys. Kind of like he's mad at 'em because he ain't a big guy'" (26). He dreams of being able to assert his authority and superiority and thus assuage his insecurity, and because of this, he feels the need to over establish his
Bibliography: Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. New York: Penguin Group, 1937.