Exercise Your Rights:
Read Banned Books
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck
Another story I read in HS.
They are an unlikely pair: George is “small and quick and dark of face”; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a “family,” clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California’s dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.
Of Mice and Men, creates an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual’s existence meaningful.
Of Mice and Men is banned and challenged in schools and libraries due to its racial slurs (particularly the N-word), profanity, vulgarity, and depiction of violence and sexual situations. Some people also object to the novel’s negative themes, its portrayal of marginalized groups like women and the disabled, and an alleged anti-business or anti-American message from the Depression era.