Literature, a thing that can change the way society looks at things, or change the way society lives. Of Mice and Me is a short book, but it is a prime example of great literature because of the many problems Lennie must overcome that come from his mental illness. Crooks is another character that represents the self conflict, type of literature that is only worth writing about according to Steinbeck.
Many people have their own opinion about what good literature, and the have very right to, but Steinbecks speach thinks good literature is to " declare and concelebrate mans proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit." It is "exposing out many grievous faults and failures" to release " explosive forces capable of creative good and of destructive evil." Steinbeck thinks " only the human heart in conflict with itself seemed worth writing about." Readers must be able to relate to a character and have a different look out on the world, or at least change the way the reader think a little bit.
One character who shows this in Of Mice in Men, is Lennie. Lennie is the character that is very big and strong, but is limited to do things because of his mental illness. Since he has this conflict with himself, it hurts his ability to be self sufficient, and his maturity level. He needs help and guidance from George all the time to keep himself in line. Out of the very few choices he made for himself they usually ended up being devastating and put George and Lennie both in a bad position. An example is when Lennie and Curly's wife are in the barn together, he could not overcome himself when she showed off her hair to Lennie and asked him to touch it. Even though George had said not to even look at her, Lennie made the choice of touching her hair, which ended up with Lennie killing Curly's wife and putting George and Lennie in another bad position. This shows how his mental illness just took over him and the self conflict he had with himself had made its appearance and made a tragedy.
Another character that demonstrates the self-conflict literature is Crooks. He shows no pride in being black and cannot live with himself not being able to do things with the "white folks" He also had a problem in his back, but he overcame this by just living on and dealing with it. He continued to work and do his daily task with the problem. Still he let his pride be taken away when he was labeled black. This shows a valuable lesson about being self confident in the world and not to let the problems the world throws at us get in our way. Self-conflict is the one problem the world can throw at society that society can over come easily if society just deals with them and moves on.
The world is made up of many types of literature, but the one that shines the most , and is only worth writing about is the one that should be used in every book so we can get a good lesson and great story out of every book. Through doing this it should change the way society looks at things and show ways society can overcome problems through out there entire life. Most of all it can teach society a way of life to live by and show society the path to happiness. This is what all literature should be made of.
