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Discrimination In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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Discrimination is different from judging someone because of their skin color. Different characters throughout the novel are discriminated because of other factors like age and gender.
“Judging a person does not define who they are, it defines who you are.” In “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck, many characters are faced with loneliness and are discriminated in different ways. Discrimination causes loneliness as shown through Steinbeck’s use of the characters Crooks, Curley’s wife and Candy.
Crooks deals with loneliness throughout the novel since he is discriminated for his skin tone. Crooks demonstrates how discrimination affects his personality. The quote “Cause I’m black. They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink. Well, I tell you all of you stink to me.” (67). This quote shows that Crooks gets discriminated because he is black. He is treated on the farm like he does not matter. Also, he always hangs out in his room because nobody will ever talk to him which proves that he is lonely. Another quote that …show more content…
Which makes him lonely. Candy is "a tall, stoop-shouldered old man who wears in blue jeans and carries a big push-broom in his left hand." (18). This quote shows that everyone discriminates Candy because he is old and he is not really useful anymore. Also he is missing a hand which is how he gets the nickname “the old swamper”. “Well, looka here, Slim. I been thinkin”. That dog of Candy’s is so God damn old he can’t hardly walk. Stink like hell too. Ever’ time he comes into the bunk house I can smell him for two, three days. Why’nt you get Candy to shoot his old dog and give him one of he pups to raise up?” (35). This quote shows that Candy had to learn to have his dog put down which then means that George is going to have to shoot Lennie later in the book. Therefore, because of Candy’s missing hand is physically discriminated which makes him lonely at

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