Compare and contrast of Night and Of Mice and Men: Post 2
Jon, I am incredibly relieved that you thought Night showed a stronger level of discrimination in it since that story is based off of horrible events that actually happened in history. I agree with you that even though both books show a desire for freedom, Elie's want to be free is much more noticeable than that of George or Lennie's, and this creates a dramatic amount of empathy within a reader. I feel that everyone who was able to think straight after experiencing the trauma from the Holocaust wanted to achieve freedom as much as Elie, while other minorities in Mr. Steinbeck's story wished for the independence George and Lennie wanted to have, showing us that these main characters were never the only ones to think of having equal rights to those who were "superior" to them.
Although the themes within Night and Of Mice and Men are very important to know about, I want to focus mostly on the main characters for this post. Specifically, I want to compare Elie and Lennie since they were the two who were most often the targets of discrimination, and we could actually hear and analyze what they thought when others bullied them. Elie, for one, was a boy when he was taken to concentration camps, and therefore, he had a much harder time understanding exactly why he was experiencing such events than the adults that surrounded him. Lennie could be described as being even less capable than Elie when it came to learning about how the world works because of his mental state, and his lack of sensibility made him seem more childish that of Night's young protagonist. Due to the differences in the mental states of these two characters, it is crystal clear that Elie began to take in the happenings around him pretty fast and adapted to his new environment much quicker than Lennie was able to realize the mistakes he repeatedly made. "The morning star was shining in the sky. I too had become a completely different person. The student of the Talmud, the child that I was, had been consumed in the flames." (Wiesel, 34). Although both Elie and Lennie went through forms of discrimination and hoped for a better life, the differences in how they saw the world and its people created varying options for the two, whether they were becoming determined to create a bright future or thinking about how not to kill one's next pet.
In the end, one can say that Lennie's mental state is what killed him, because Elie was very young when he experienced the Holocaust, yet he survived since he could notice things and use his observations to learn from them. Lennie, even being a fully grown man, could not grasp many general concepts of life throughout Mr. Steinbeck's entire novel, and his innocence is what caused him to kill Curley's wife. It was in no way Lennie's fault that he had a hard time adapting to new environments, yet it is more that this poor character can be seen suffering his entire life because of something so uncontrollable. Elie and Lennie were not different because of Lennie's disability, but more so because of how they saw everything with such different points of view. Elie learned how bitter the world can be and what one needs to do for survival from what he witnessed, while Lennie was continuously stuck on the idea of being sheltered by George for the rest of his life (until his death). "'George gonna come back,' Lennie reassured himself in a frightened voice. 'Maybe George come back already. Maybe I better go see.'" (Steinbeck, 71).
Jon, do you think that Elie and Lennie are more similar because of their life experiences, or more different because of their various coping strategies? Do you think George is more like either one of them?
Jon, I am incredibly relieved that you thought Night showed a stronger level of discrimination in it since that story is based off of horrible events that actually happened in history. I agree with you that even though both books show a desire for freedom, Elie's want to be free is much more noticeable than that of George or Lennie's, and this creates a dramatic amount of empathy within a reader. I feel that everyone who was able to think straight after experiencing the trauma from the Holocaust wanted to achieve freedom as much as Elie, while other minorities in Mr. Steinbeck's story wished for the independence George and Lennie wanted to have, showing us that these main characters were never the only ones to think of having equal rights to those who were "superior" to them.
Although the themes within Night and Of Mice and Men are very important to know about, I want to focus mostly on the main characters for this post. Specifically, I want to compare Elie and Lennie since they were the two who were most often the targets of discrimination, and we could actually hear and analyze what they thought when others bullied them. Elie, for one, was a boy when he was taken to concentration camps, and therefore, he had a much harder time understanding exactly why he was experiencing such events than the adults that surrounded him. Lennie could be described as being even less capable than Elie when it came to learning about how the world works because of his mental state, and his lack of sensibility made him seem more childish that of Night's young protagonist. Due to the differences in the mental states of these two characters, it is crystal clear that Elie began to take in the happenings around him pretty fast and adapted to his new environment much quicker than Lennie was able to realize the mistakes he repeatedly made. "The morning star was shining in the sky. I too had become a completely different person. The student of the Talmud, the child that I was, had been consumed in the flames." (Wiesel, 34). Although both Elie and Lennie went through forms of discrimination and hoped for a better life, the differences in how they saw the world and its people created varying options for the two, whether they were becoming determined to create a bright future or thinking about how not to kill one's next pet.
In the end, one can say that Lennie's mental state is what killed him, because Elie was very young when he experienced the Holocaust, yet he survived since he could notice things and use his observations to learn from them. Lennie, even being a fully grown man, could not grasp many general concepts of life throughout Mr. Steinbeck's entire novel, and his innocence is what caused him to kill Curley's wife. It was in no way Lennie's fault that he had a hard time adapting to new environments, yet it is more that this poor character can be seen suffering his entire life because of something so uncontrollable. Elie and Lennie were not different because of Lennie's disability, but more so because of how they saw everything with such different points of view. Elie learned how bitter the world can be and what one needs to do for survival from what he witnessed, while Lennie was continuously stuck on the idea of being sheltered by George for the rest of his life (until his death). "'George gonna come back,' Lennie reassured himself in a frightened voice. 'Maybe George come back already. Maybe I better go see.'" (Steinbeck, 71).
Jon, do you think that Elie and Lennie are more similar because of their life experiences, or more different because of their various coping strategies? Do you think George is more like either one of them?
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