Monday, May 14, 2007

399 Hits (As of 8:48pm)

Hey! I finished my first Essay! =-dances- Okay... well I finished it 24 hours ago but i handed it in today. Not much to say cause I'm quite tired but you know my fourm? Well I changed it up a bit. Click on the link. Although the pics are rather..... blah. TT TT Oh! On staurday I watched Kaleido Star up to episode 7 and it looks good so far. ^^ Watch it. Much recomended. Uhhhh..... I still have homework... TT TT Okay well here is my essay and I'll ttyl.

Discrimination

Discrimination is seen through everyday life from the smallest of children to the oldest of adults. The only reason discrimination continues today is because the adults set an example for the children and they mimic it. Discrimination is shown within the novel "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck. Discrimination is when people hate something or someone who appears different from themselves because they cannot accept that people are different from themselves and so those people become the socially ignored. The following characters, Candy, Crooks and Curley’s wife, represent the causes and effects of discrimination on their lives.

Although discrimination is there for a long time, it does not effect one immediately. For example, Candy was always included with the other men on the farm but when he lost his hand and grew old, the other men on the farm began to excluded him because he was too old. "You seen what they done to my dog tonight? They say he wasn’t no good to himself nor nobody else. When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me." (Steinbeck, 60) The quotation explains how Candy feels because of the discrimination and it relates Candy to his dog. Just before shooting the dog, Candy had asked for one more day with it and the men in the bunk house had refused to let Candy have that and bossed him around. The only reason they had shot the dog was because the dog was bothering them and ‘was no good to itself or anyone else’. The only difference between the dog and Candy is that the men at the bunk house would never shoot him. Candy is an old man who has lost one hand and is the only one at the farm like him. Due to the fact, he is so different from the rest of the men; they have ignored him and don’t accept what he has to say, leaving him alone on the farm.

Of course not all people have been included for the most of their lives. Some people, like Crooks, has been excluded for the most part of his life just because of the colour of his skin, something he cannot change. "... S’pose you couldn’t go into the bunk house and play rumming ‘cause you was black. How’d you like that? S’pose you had to sit out here and read books." (Steinbeck, 72) The quotation explains how Crooks has been treated from the moment he came to the farm to work. Due to his skin colour, Crooks has been treated badly and has been isolated from the other men at the farm. They have treated him badly because of the fact that he looks different from them and they cannot accept that others will look different from themselves. They do not accept Crooks for that one reason, for the reason that his skin colour is not the same as theirs. Due to that, Crooks is treated horrible and becomes a social outcast due to the laws in place of that time period.

Sometimes having the same skin colour but a different sex can make all the difference. With Curley’s wife, this fact is true. The only difference between her and the men was that she was a female, not a male. When she became married and began to live with Curley on the farm, she was excluded and ignored, her needs being lost in the words that she never spoke. The men had ignored her and excluded her as to not mess with Curley and she was left alone. "-Sat’iday night. Ever’body out and doin’ som’pin. Ever’body! An’ what am I doin’? Standin’ here talkin’ to a bunch of bindle stiffs - a nigger an’ a dum-dum and a lousy ol’ sheep- an’ likin’ it because they ain’t nobody else." (Steinbeck, 78) The quotation explains how Curley’s Wife had been ignored and excluded but also how she had enjoyed talking to the other socially outcasted because they did not judge her. Around the farm Curley’s Wife was judged more on how she looked and others could not comprehend her having feelings of her own. She was treated as a prize and when she died they did not even feel remorse for her. She was very much the same to the men although she was female but they did not see that she had feelings as well and treated her as a prize. No one listened to what she had to say and she became one of the socially ignored because she was something different, a prize and that was all.

In all cases, of Candy, Crooks and Curley’s wife, if they had only been treated like real people, like people who were the same as others, then perhaps they would not have been so unhappy. Discrimination has a direct effect on loneliness because discrimination isolates them from society, treating them horribly and ignoring whatever they would have to say because they are not as the others. If people could see that, although they may appear different on the outside, they are the same as everyone else on the inside. The reason people discriminate is because they hate or fear what is different and defend themselves by making laws that the whole group must abide. They do not base the laws individually but by group. If doubt and fear, as well as hate, of things different could be taken away then discrimination would have no reason to exist.


Comments (1)