Compare and Contrast Post 2: Effects of the Plot and Setting

     Surbhi, I feel that Elie and Lennie are pretty different people.  Yes, they were both victims of discrimination, and they both reacted with confusion to their unfair treatment, but I feel that is where the similarities end.  Lennie is mentally disabled, and I think this changes his aspect on the world greatly.  When Elie is discriminated against for being Jewish, he knows why the Nazis are doing this to him.  He may not understand their reason, but he understands that they have a reason.  Lennie, however, does not understand the reasons people are angry at him. He does not have the mental capacity to think from their point of view, and imagine their reaction to his actions.
     I think that the surroundings of the characters and what happens in each story really shapes them and who they are in each novel. Elie, who slowlys becomes emotionally callused and stolid as the book progresses, has to develop these personality traits in order to retain his sanity in the concentration camps.  He would not develop these if the story was set in, say, a small town in the US. That's a very strange example, but it's a place where a person doesn't have to emotionally guard themselves against a genocide going on around them.  Lennie and George, two nomadic farmhands who pick up work where they can, develop scavenger-like instincts that are prevalent especially in the beginning of the book to help them find work, supplies, anything they need.  They wouldn't develop these skills if Lennie and George were instead working on urban farms close to present-day cities, not sparse, distant fields scattered across the midwestern US during the Great Depression.
     Each character's surroundings shape him into a different person as the story progresses.  Elie becomes emotionally stolid and indifferent to death.  Lennie becomes more conscious of his actions.  George questions his choice in friends.  These are all direct results of the setting and specific events in the story.
     Who do you think was most impacted by the setting of each novel? Who was most impacted by plots within the story?