Miles is a very wealthy person. He lives in a big house with very fancy cars and goes out to eat every week. All his life he worked hard for his money and is living the good life. One day Miles notices a girl he really likes and goes to ask her out. Even though the many characters in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men are shown to be very kind, many of them commit cruel acts all motivated by envy.

The cruel acts committed by Steinbeck’s characters are all very present throughout the book and all are motivated by envy. One character, Curley, gets very upset when Lennie, someone bigger than him arrives at the farm because he is jealous as he is very small. Candy mentions to Lennie, “Curley’s like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys. …show more content…
George first shows his cruelty in the beginning by depriving Lennie of his mouse arguing and Lennie crying, “‘Uh-uh. Jus’ a dead mouse, George. I didn’ kill it. Honest! I found it. I found it dead.’ ‘Give it here!’ said George. ‘Aw, leave me have it, George’” (Steinbeck 5). While this could be part of George’s personality, it shows later in the book his envy of others who own land saying,
“‘We gotta keep it till we get a stake. We can’t help it, Lennie. We’ll get out jus’ as soon as we can. I don’t like it no better than you do’” (Steinbeck 33). Finally, at the end of the book George has no difficulty killing Lennie. After he is done he simply says in a normal tone, “‘I just done it, George said tiredly. ‘Did he have my gun?’ ‘Yeah. He had your gun.’" (Steinbeck 107). He’s cruel by lying about Lennie having the gun making himself look better, because deep down everyone is capable of cruelty.

Miles goes to ask the girl of his dreams out but he learns that her boyfriend is Charlie. He develops a hatred, is upset, and he’s angry. In a fit of rage Miles beats charlie to death with a bat. Even though Miles had much better circumstances than Charlie a little bit of jealousy caused him to snap and ruin his