Ableism within the context of mice and men.
To begin let me say no work is exempt from criticism no
matter how much of a classic it may be perceived to be. Second This paper will
be an in depth analysis as to the ableism relating to the character of Lennie
within the context of mice and men.
To begin we must define ableism and what exactly that is.
Ableism is a form of discrimination do to one’s disability. This can manifest
in many forms. It can manifest in language, such as ableist slurs such as
stupid or R*tarded, bullying by able bodied people, un accommodations by
society or even misrepresentation and villianization of the disabled community
within media such as the case within Of Mice and Men.
Well how exactly is mice and men ableist you may be asking?
Well to start off this conversation we must begin at the basics. I believe a
good place to start this is on the topic of Lennie Small one of the main
characters, and the only main character to be mentally disabled. Lennie small
is treated as a classic example of terrible representation.
He is mean, violent, some may even argue 'sevil.
You see if you are to represent an entire group of people
you must take into consideration how you wish to do so. The implications that
you wish to show. If you were to say portray all black characters in your story
as uneducated and terrible people, that would carry with it the connotation
that in your world all black people are uneducated and terrible people, making
us believe that you the author believe this to apply to today society.
If you were to portray all of your Jewish characters as
money hungry and greedy then we would believe in world’s you create, all Jewish
people can be this and only be this. Thus it reveals prejudice within your
work.
Lennie small is the only disabled representation within the
story of mice and Men. Thus how Lennie is portrayed reflects upon how disabled
people work and behave within this world.
This is problematic given how Lennie is, as a character.
Lennie is portrayed as unintelligent. Lennie does not realize the extent of his
actions and is incapable of recognizing such facts. Lennie does terrible deeds
and does not care about such. Lennie only cares about the punishment to which
he receives. Lennie is often said to have the mind of a child and the body of a
lion.
In fact his name actually means lion. This is all incredibly troublesome
when you look at the fact that Lennie is the only disabled character within
this fictional body of work. When we only have one character of one group, that
character reflects as a whole, the community in which that character
represents.
Thus all of our knowledge about what people of his
disability are like and how they interact within the context of the story are
deemed from Lennie and his interactions. Lennie is a terrible human being. He
does terrible things and cannot fathom why what he did was wrong, presumably in
the story due to his disability. However that is not true of mental disability
in real life thus the misrepresentation of his disability can be seen as highly
problematic. Disabled people as far as the telling of Mice and Men is concerned
cannot differentiate between good and bad deeds. They only care about punishment
not the fact that they did something wrong.
They are incapable of determining
their surroundings or what’s going on in their world. And they are all terrible
human beings. The following statements can be seen as prejudiced and horrible
for a number of reasons. But that is the impression deemed from Lennie and his
character thus disabled people within the story of mice and men.
Now how could this be fixed? If Lennie was not the only
mentally disabled character within this story and we had more diversity it
would not be seen as such a problematic glance. Mice and men was written in a
time period where blatant ableism was fairly expectable. It’s still true to
some degree today. However more so by that time period. If Lennie wasn't as bad
of a character, if he recognized his actions or there was another character
shown in a more positive light with his same disabled characteristics mice and
men would not be as ableist as perceived by me today.
