In the book Of Mice and Men each character is in some way is deserving of sympathy even if it is only a little.
George is deserving of sympathy because he has to spend all his time looking after Lennie, and has no proper life of his own. He told Lennie “How it was gonna be” and believed their dream would come true. “I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would.” This makes you feel sorry for George when he realises their dream won’t come true. After he shot Lennie, the reader can tell George no matter what he said previously will be lonely and deserves sympathy, he will also have to cope with the guilt of shooting Lennie
Lennie doesn’t seem like a sad character in my opinion. He believes that
“I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you.”
But George I think is the one who always looks after Lennie. He uses the dream to keep himself happy and to motivate him to be good. Lennie is the only character who I think doesn’t feel lonely because of his obvious mental problems which I think stop him understanding things the way George and the other characters do. All he knows is that if he does something ‘bad’, he can’t tend the rabbits. He’s always had George and has never experienced lonliness really so I don’t think he is deserving of sympathy.
In the beginning, Candy has his dog to keep him happy. But then Carlson shoots his dog, and Candy feels lonely so in orter to to make him feel less depressed he decided to help pay for the house George and Lennie want in their dream. After that, the dream of having a house and farm is the only thing that provides Candy with hope and happiness, Candy has nothing to be happy for, people treat him badly, he lost a hand, and his dog was killed, he is old and not as useful or well paid as the others and so I feel he is deserving of sympathy
Curley is a small mean man. He tries to pick fights with everyone on the ranch. Which is why he has no friends on the ranch. He deals with this loneliness by going out “to town”. “He’s the boss’s son” so he doesn’t have to work as hard as the others on the ranch. He is obviously unhappy because he is always so bitter and he is obviously lonely because he is always looking for his wife, he tries to make himself feel better about himself by trying to fight with other ranch workers, I think this is a sign that Curley is insecure and I do think that he deserves atleast a little sympathy
Curley’s wife does not “like Curley. He ain’t a nice fella.”. So because she doesn’t like Curley, she goes around flirting with all the other men on ranch, but none of them want to talk to her, because they’re scared of what Curley would do. The men all see her as a tart and a bad person to talk to. I don’t think she was a bad person, and I don’t think she’s deserved the treatment she got from the ranch workers. Because nobody would talk to her and she doesn’t like her husband, she is a very lonely character who I think is deserving of our sympathy.
Everybody on the ranch is racist towards Crooks
“Ya see the stable buck’s a nigger”.
That’s what most of the ranch workers say about Crooks and they have no regrets in saying so. He is excluded from everything that they do. Because of this he doesn’t care about much other than his own personal space, his space means so much to him because he is alone there and every other person treats him awfully. Crooks seems very hopeless. Any time he got a oppurtunity he denied it. The first person to be nice to him was Lennie who did not understand racism and then Crooks decided to join George and Lennie’s dream, though when Lennie is killed Crooks chances of happiness are taken away and nothing gets better for Crooks so I feel he is deserving of sympathy
Slim is the ‘God’ figure of the ranch. He is highly respected by all the ranch workers, and has the final say in most things like Candy’s dog about everything. I don’t think he is a lonely character because he is well liked and respected by the other ranch workers and seems happy, he doesn’t ever provoke sympathy in the reader and there isn’t much for the readers to feel sorry for Slim about. He seems to have it good compared to some of the other ranch workers so I don’t think he’s deserving of sympathy.
George, Lennie, Crooks and Candy use the hope of owning some land to keep themselves happy. Though they are still deserving of sympathy apart from Lennie who I don’t think deserves sympathy untill he accidentally kills Curley’s Wife. I think that Candy, Crooks and Curley’s wife deserve the most sympathy, though George and Curley do I think deserve sympathy I think that Candy Crooks and Curley’s wife are nicer people have a tougher deal than George and Curley, I don’t think that Slim deserves any sympathy because he doesn’t seem to have anything majorly wrong and he has enough people who like him, I don’t think Lennie deserves much sympathy though he does when he gets himself in trouble without meaning too.
