Comparison of The Novels "Of Mice and Men" and "Flowers for Algernon"

Most people like to sit down and read good books that are interested in. For example, Anna Karenina, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Flowers for Algernon, and Of Mice and Men. Both novels Flowers for Algernon and Of Mice and Men have a lot of similarities, by there friendship and mental disabilities. They also have many differences, by love and dream. Flowers for Algernon is about a retarded man who is granted the chance to become intelligent. George and Lennie, are migrant ranch workers, who move from place to place search of new job opportunities during a time of, Great Depression. These two stories are very compelling and tragic. They have similar personalities/characteristics and both stories had a different outcome.

Both novels, Of Mice and Men and Flowers for Algernon have many similarities by the theme, innocence. In the novel Of Mice and Men a mentally challenged man, Lenny, loses his innocence when he unexpectedly breaks Curley’s wife’s neck. In the novel Of Mice and Men, states, “And she continued to struggle, and her eyes were wild with terror. He shook her then, and he was angry with her. ‘Don’t you go yellin’,’ he said, and he shook her; and her body flopped like a fish. And then she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck,” (Steinbeck, 45). Lennie always got into trouble on accident and always seemed to get out of it because of his mental state or innocence, but this time Lennie will have to face the consequences head-on.

In the novel Flowers for Algernon mentally challenged man named Charlie lost his innocence when he gets an operation done to make him smarter, he realizes all his friends and people he knew were mocking and taunting him rather than being his friend. In the novel Flowers for Algernon, “I think it’s a good thing about finding out how everybody laughs at me. I thought about it a lot. It’s because I’m so dumb and I don’t even know when I’m doing something dumb. People think it’s funny when a dumb person can’t do things the same way they can,” (Keyes, 9). Charlie recognized that his friends were not friends anymore. Charlie saw that they were laughing at him instead of with him. In both cases, innocence was a case of loss and

The theme for the film and novel of Of Mice and Men and Flowers for Algernon was intolerance. In the novel, Charlie wasn’t treated right because people didn’t give him the patience that he needed. Charlie was shown a great deal of intolerance when the workers at his workplace, the bakery turned against him. He was always a hard worker at the bakery and Mr. Donner fired him because of the other men’s lack tolerance towards him. In the novel Flowers for Algernon “All of a sudden you’re a big shot, a know-it-all, a brain.” “You got a nerve” (Keyes 74). Charlie soon found out getting smarter made his life more difficult and changed his original beliefs, like about the rabbit’s foot. In Steinbeck’s novel, when individuals feel like someone doesn’t belong to them, their instinct is to treat that person cruelly. Crook is a black stable buck that is discriminated against throughout the book because of his race. The other men believe that Crooks doesn’t belong because of his color of skin, so they make him sleep in the barn by the horses. As a result of Crooks becomes a very bitter person because no one talks to him. In the novel Of Mice and Men, “They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink.” (Steinbeck 34) Crooks get fed up when people talk to him because everyone treats him like dirt. Also, all of the negative treatment his heart hardens. Crooks just wants to belong, play cards with people, and make friends instead of being lonely. In these two novels, Of Mice and Men and Flowers for Algernon both show the difference of there experiences with intolerance.

There are several ways in which Of Mice and Men and Flowers for Algernon are similar and different. Both novels Flowers for Algernon and Of Mice and Men have a lot of similarities and differences, by there friendship and mental disabilities, and by love and dream. Both of these novels show the way that they are innocent and intolerant about the way people treat them and the way that they lost a part of their life to it.

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