OMAM Conflicts 5/1/15

Prompt:  Explore two or more conflicts from "Of Mice and Men" deeply, and discover the effect they had on the plot.

Date:  5/1/15

***SPOILER ALERT***

          Curley's fight with Lennie was one of the main conflicts of the story, and I feel like it was the first major problem, that set the scene for other possible future fights.  After Lennie had crushed Curley's hand, I thought Curley was going to find a way to come back for revenge, however, that never really happened.  The book states, "Curley’s face reddened. “I’m goin’,” he said. “I’m gonna shoot the guts outa that big bastard myself, even if I only got one hand. I’m gonna get ‘im.”  This shows me how the fights and confrontation between Curley and Lennie brought the tension in Curley to the climax, and that this was the last straw, when Lennie killed Curley's Wife.

          Another conflict of the story, was how Candy's dog got shot.  In the story, it said, "A shot sounded in the distance. The men looked quickly at the old man. Every head turned toward him.

For a moment he continued to stare at the ceiling. Then he rolled slowly over and faced the wall and lay silent."  This textual information helped me realize that the death of Candy's dog didn't really play too much of a role in the plot, however, it was definitely very important because of how it portrayed a message or part of the moral of the story.  I feel that companionship and loneliness played a huge part in what this novella is defined for.  Candy was a very old man, and his best friend was his pet.  Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to see that Candy felt very remorseful and sorrowful when he didn't do it himself, and had his dog forced away from him.

Conflict	Type of Conflict	Effect
Curley fights Lennie	Man vs Man	Curley might want to come back for revenge.  Curley’s hand is also completely broken.
Candy’s dog gets shot	Man vs Self	Candy feels remorse, and guilt for agreeing to the killing of his old dog.  It really lowered his self-esteem.
Lennie grads dress at weed	Man vs Man	George and Lennie are forced to hide in an irrigation ditch, and run from Weed.
Lennie and his mental disability	Man vs Self	Lennie forgets things very often, he gets in a fight with Curley, and isn’t able to communicate his feelings very well.
George’s frustration with Lennie	Man vs Man	George always yells at Lennie, and often confuses him because Lennie isn’t sure what he did wrong.
George is forced or obligated to shoot Lennie	Man vs Self	George is going to feel a lot of remorse for what he did, and he took Lennie’s life for his own good because he had to.