When Slim's dog has nine puppies, he drowns four of the smallest pups immediately because their mother cannot feed them. Slim tells Carlson that he kept the five biggest pups of the litter and ends up giving one of them to Lennie Small. Slim drowning the four runt pups is significant and develops Steinbeck's theme regarding the predatory, competitive nature of the world: the weak suffer and die, and only the strong survive. The runt pups are vulnerable beings and stand no chance of surviving in the dangerous, hostile world. Similar to the runt pups, who are drowned immediately after they are born, Lennie has no chance of surviving in the competitive, harsh world on his own. After accidentally killing Curley's wife, George is forced to humanely end Lennie's life, which is similar to how Slim kills the runt pups. The unfortunate runt pups symbolically represent weak individuals, who are taken advantage of and do not stand a chance of surviving the hostile environment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is the theme of the chapter Lead?
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
The statement "Development policy needs to be about poor people, not just poor countries," carries a lot of baggage. Let's dis...
-
"Mistaken Identity" is an amusing anecdote recounted by the famous author Mark Twain about an experience he once had while traveli...
-
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
De Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman was enormously influential. We can see its influences on early English feminist Mary Woll...
-
As if Hamlet were not obsessed enough with death, his uncovering of the skull of Yorick, the court jester from his youth, really sets him of...
-
In both "Volar" and "A Wall of Fire Rising," the characters are impacted by their environments, and this is indeed refle...
No comments:
Post a Comment