Of Mice And Men Essay Essay, Research Paper

Of Mice and Men Essay

Do you have good communication skills? Well, having good communication skills is a key thing in life. You need to know how to communicate in life to be successful. If you can’t communicate you won’t be able to get by in life. And if you want to be successful you need to master the language of communication. Some people don’t even have an idea of how to communicate but the get by in life just fine while others people have a lot of trouble in life. In the book Of Mice and Men the characters are very poor communicators because the refuse to talk to each other in a decent manner. Because these people can’t communicate too well with each other the seem to have a lot of trouble in life. And because they fail to communicate with each other they are mean, unsure of themselves and with what they want, they are disrespectful and they seem to jump to conclusions awfully quickly.

Not communicating well makes you feel bad because people can’t understand what you are saying to them. Pretty soon you are going to be mean to anyone who talks to you because you think that they won’t be able to understand you. But in actual reality some people can understand you and others won’t be able to understand you at all. Lets take Curley as and example; he has a difficult time communicating with Lennie. For some reason he has had a bad experience with tall people, maybe it’s because he’s short and they like to pick on him or because they get all the good looking girls. We don’t know why but he just doesn’t like tall people. Now I don’t know anything about his past but I bet you that he has tried to talk and be friends with tall people and every time he has gotten rejected. Since he has gotten rejected every time he just thinks that all tall people are going to be mean and will pick on him, that’s why he doesn’t like Lennie. Curley thinks that Lennie is going to be like all the other guys who are tall. Because of his bad experience Curley decides I’m not going to give this guy a chance to pick on me or even over rule me. A good example of this is when Curley goes, “What the hell you laughin’ at?” Here he goes overboard. He gets mad at Lennie just because Lennie laughed at him for what he said. He doesn’t even give Lennie a chance to explain himself; instead Curley just right away starts to get into a fight with Lennie. “Come on, ya big bastard. Get up on your feet. No big son-of-a b**** is gonna laugh at me. I’ll show yo’ who’s gella.” He’s trying to act tough but he’s just being mean here, because he’s starting a fight with a guy that is two times his height and could easily pound him. Curley has definitely gone overboard with this now. It’s mean enough to scare a new person, but it’s another thing to scare him by starting a firth with him. To top this all off Curley punches him and Lennie starts to bleed. If he wanted to scare Curley he could of done something else like pretend that he is doing something really bad to somebody else. But getting mad at him, not giving Curley a chance to explain himself, and then finally punching him is just plane mean. It shows that you’re cold hearted, and self-centered. Curley getting mad at Lennie, not giving Lennie a chance to explain himself, and punching Lennie are good examples of how not communicating properly can make you a mean person.

When you are unsure of yourself and what you want you not only start to confuse yourself but also everyone around you. A good example of this is Crooks. Crooks is really unsure of what he wants. He can’t make up his mind weather he should or shouldn’t let Lennie in his barn house. “You got no right to come in my room. This here is my room. Nobody got any right in here but me.” That’s what he says to Lennie when Lennie comes in without asking him. He tells Lennie to get out of his room and get lost. He says that because he doesn’t know how he should communicates with people after the way they have treated him. He’s not sure of what he wants. He can’t make up his mind about weather he should or shouldn’t be nice to people. So because Lennie doesn’t leaves he tells Lennie to come in and sit down. Once again he’s not sure weather he should kick Lennie out or weather he should let Lennie in. Crooks has a difficult time making that decision. The only reason he told Lennie to get out is because Crooks can’t go out and enjoy himself like all the other guys on the farm, instead he sits at home and reads books on Friday night. But the only reason he lets Lennie in is because he finally finds a person who can relate to him. See once again he can’t make up his mind. He can’t decide weather he wants Lennie to come in or weather he doesn’t want Lennie to come in. And the only reason he says, “Nobody got any right in here but me.” Is because that barn house is a place where he can be what ever he wants and can do what ever he wants to do. The barn house is like his own special place, just like a little kid would have his or her own little place. Another good example of confusing people around you by being unsure is Curley’s wife. Curley’s wife is unsure of what she wants. She can’t make up her mind about weather she thinks Curley is a sweet guy or weather Curley is a mean guy. She can’t make up her mind about Curley, she is like Crooks. On one hand she thinks that Curley is such a sweet guy and that Curley would do any thing of he and on the other hand she thinks that Curley is such a mean guy because he leave her alone and goes and hangs out with the guys. She is always complaining to Lennie about what she can and can’t do. “I get lonely…You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad. How’d you like not to talk to anybody?” Then she thinks that Curley is a sweet and he’d do anything for her. You can see what I mean now, she hates Curley and yet she likes him, he lets people in yet he tells them to get out of his barn house. You see how the confuse people.

When you combine mean and unsure of yourself and what you want you get a person who is disrespectful towards themselves and everyone else around them. Lets take Crooks for an example again. He is unsure of what the wants, he can’t make up his mind on weather he wants to let Lennie in or tell him to get out. When you are unsure of what you want you start to disrespect yourself and others around. When Crooks is around Lennie he use the “N”(Negro) word a lot. For example “I ain’t a southern negro,” right here he just disrespects himself and his family. He disrespects himself by calling himself a negro and his family by denying what he really may be. The feeling of being wanted by someone has already started to wear on him and Lennie has just been there for five minutes talking to him. He’s feeling wanted so now he going to put him self down and everyone else. He calls himself a negro all the time. “If I say something, why it’s just a nigger sayin’ it.” Once again he puts himself down. Instead of calling him self a negro he could say a black man or he could say it’s jus me. The feeling is starting to wear on him. Another example of being disrespectful is when Curley is being mean to Lennie. In that scenario he’s being mean to everyone else around him just so he can look tough. This shows how he is disrespectful to people around him. Curley yells at Lennie just so he can look good and keep up to his reputation about hating and not being scared of big guys. Curley then starts a fight with Lennie and the Curley punches Lennie. Why? Just so he could live up to the true Curley. What Curley is doing is that he is living up to the true him at others expense. Yells at people and starts fights and punches people at their expense. Now you can see that being mean and unsure of yourself and what you want leads to disrespecting others.

Finally when you put all three of these things together, being mean, unsure of yourself and what you want, and being disrespectful, you get a really awkward person. An awkward person is a person who jumps to conclusions really quickly. Curley is a really good example of this. When Curley finds out that his wife is dead he immediately blames Lennie, even thought he has no evidence. You see he jumped to the conclusion right away that Lennie killed his wife. The only reason he blames Lennie is because he wants to get back at him for breaking his arm and Curley has found the perfect opportunity. What Curley doesn’t realize is that it could have been anyone who could have killed his wife. What really surprises me is that he didn’t blame Crooks right way, because Crooks is black and blacks were really targeted back then. That’s another reason that he is awkward, he actually blamed Lennie instead of Crooks. You can tell that he is just blaming Lennie because he wants to get back at Lennie. Curley also wasn’t sitting there sobbing about his wife’s death. He doesn’t even act like he’s truly sorry about his wife’s death. He just sat there and blamed Lennie. He didn’t even think about calling the cops or anyone, he just wanted to go out there and kill Lennie. This a good example showing how people jump to conclusions really quickly when mean, unsure of themselves and what they want, and disrespectful to others.

In conclusion the characters in the book Of Mice and Men are really poor communicators because they can’t talk to each other in a descent manner. Because they can’t talk properly the characters in the book are mean, unsure of themselves and what they want, disrespectful to themselves and others, and which leads them jump to conclusions really quickly. If these characters were even half way descent then they are now I am sure that they would have fewer conflicts. This just goes to show you that communication is a key aspect in life and it can go a long way. It also shows you communication is the single most important thing in life.