The Role Of Power In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

The amount of power that someone believes they have will drastically impact the way that they view both the world around them and their place within it. Whether or not this power or lack thereof, is real or imagined it still changes their morals and beliefs. Throughout John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men, characters such as Curley, Crooks, and Lennie Smalls, who all view themselves as more or less powerful than the others on the ranch go through life very differently because of this perceived power that they wield. No man on the ranch knows perceived power quite like Curley. Curley is a hot-headed man who uses violence to assert his masculinity and authority over the ranch hands. It’s clear that the only real power he has is the fact that his father owns the ranch, and while that is significant, Curley would believe that they all have a great respect and fear of him as an individual because of his physical prowess. After Curley picks a fight with the much larger, but mentally inadequate Lennie upon his and George’s arrival to the ranch, Candy, one of the ranch hands, refers to Curley as “like a lot of little guys.”(pg26), and goes on to say that he’s “alla’ time picking …show more content…
Whether he is showing this through Curley's need to show off to the men around him, Crooks' isolated life accepting his fate as a lesser man, or even Lennie's reliance on his friend and caretaker George, it is clear that these men all live the way that they do because of the amount of authority and power they believe themselves to have over everyone else on the ranch. While Steinbeck's moving novella has much to teach it's readers about friendship, acceptance, and dreams it also proves that the way we see ourselves greatly impacts the direction in which our lives will