Ableism within the context of mice and men.

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.