How Would Freud Read " of Mice and Men"

John Steinbeck's short novel Of Mice and Men is a powerful exploration of isolation, disenfranchisement, and bug of social integration in an era of cultural fracture. Divided by form, race, and gender, its characters struggle to digest into the small-scale social earth of a 1930s California ranch. But Steinbeck's story possesses a timeless dimension as well—i that bears examination in the context of the psychologist Carl Jung'south concept of the unconscious and of 2 aboriginal narratives: the Mesopotamian Ballsy of Gilgamesh and the Genesis story of Jacob and Essau.

Carl Jung and Of Mice and Men as Mythic Pattern

Some critics argue that the appeal of Of Mice and Men derives from its dramatization of universal themes, while others propose that its continued popularity results from its depiction of the reality of the lives of migrant ranch workers: from the power of realism and relevance. Nonetheless, there is at least one other manner to explain the novel's resonance with readers of every type. Certain formal elements open Of Mice and Men to a style of criticism that is interested not in realism or in theme lonely, but in the psychological human relationship of theme to character, specifically the strong symbolism of the character pair comprised by George and Lennie.

Carl Jung'southward psychoanalytical vocabulary and myth criticism offering insights into the significance of Steinbeck'south use of a traditional archetype in describing George and Lennie, suggesting that much of the novel's power derives from an ancient mythic pattern. Employing the character-pair archetype as well found in The Ballsy of Gilgamesh and the Genesis story of Jacob and Esau, Steinbeck invites usa to consider a fundamental principle of personal psychology and myth narrative that is related to Carl Jung's transcendent function of the unconscious.

Carl Jung's psychoanalytical vocabulary and myth criticism offering insights into the significance of Steinbeck'due south use of a traditional archetype in describing George and Lennie.

In this context, Of Mice and Men can be taken equally an example of a specific psychological process, rendered artistically, that seeks to externalize the relationship between the conscious ego and the unconscious, a process Carl Jung describes in his 1916 essay "The Transcendent Function." In fiction and poesy, every bit in myth, we run across this process take identify through narrative and metaphor. The purpose of the process is the achievement of  psychological balance. The tools of the process are mythogenes, the building blocks of myth—images drawn from the commonage unconscious that facilitate communication between the witting and unconscious parts of the mind. In art, the outcome of the process is oft the cosmos of a myth narrative.

Forth with a number of classic myth narratives that express this transcendent role in the acts of gods and heroes, we can point to works of modern fiction that represent mythic patterns such equally that of the "unassimilated" man or woman estranged by nature from society. William Faulkner's character Benjy in The Audio and the Fury and John Steinbeck's Lennie in Of Mice and Men are examples, and Lennie shares similarities, both literal and thematic, with the character Chief in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The Bengy-Lennie-Chief character type is a modern iteration of an ancient archetype: the unassimilated outcast or alien who represents unacceptable or unwanted urges of the unconscious listen and who—despite friendships and affections—is unable to integrate successfully into society. He is the shepherd in an age of farming. He is mute in a fourth dimension of great debate. He is the human without power over his personal history or his place in society.

The Ballsy of Gilgamesh, Genesis, and Steinbeck's Story

Although Of Mice and Men is enriched past the Jungian archetype of the unassimilated human, the novel's echo ofThe Epic of Gilgamesh and the Biblical story of Jacob and Esau is equally consequential. All three narratives describe a character pair in which ane individual, the true hero, is bonded past nascency and fate to the other, the unassimilated homo. The parallels are hitting in number, detail, and upshot: on multiple levels, George and Lennie are Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Jacob and Esau. Though The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Genesis story, and Of Mice and Men differ in other ways, each focuses on a pair of characters who announced to be cut from the same cloth—the "cloth" of mythology that Carl Jung identified as the material of the commonage unconscious.

In Of Mice and Men, Lennie is the character with the closest relationship to the Jungian concept of the unconscious. Driven by animal impulses that he is unable to control, Lennie enters the scene trailing backside George through the brush, "a huge man, shapeless of face, with large pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders [. . .] dragging his anxiety a little, the way a carry drags his paws" (Steinbeck 798). In the opening chapter, his behavior is likened to that of a carp and a horse; going to the river, he "drank with long gulps, snorting into the water like a horse" (Steinbeck 798). Animalistic images and associations are carried through to the climax of the novel in which Lennie's uncontrolled violence is compared to that of a wild animal. In the end, he returns to the river, "equally silently every bit a creeping comport moves" (Steinbeck 872). Throughout, he is fatigued to pocket-sized creatures—mice, puppies, and rabbits—and he threatens to flee the society of the ranch to live in a cave.

In Of Mice and Men, Lennie is the character with the closest relationship to the Jungian concept of the unconscious.

Enkidu in Gilgamesh and Esau in Genesis share these qualities. Born in the wilderness, Enkidu is described as having a torso that is "rough" and "covered with matted hair" (Gilgamesh 63). Just as Lennie is attracted to the solitude of the river, Enkidu "had joy of the water with the herds of wild game" (Gilgamesh 63). Like Lennie, Enkidu is physically strong but mentally unprepared for social survival (Gilgamesh 65); his bond with the animals of the wild is broken when a harlot teaches him the ways of society (65). Arriving in the city, he establishes a bond of brotherhood with Gilgamesh and becomes tasked with the guardianship of the hero, who is the king of Uruk.Genesis describes Esau similarly—a hairy human, a shepherd and hunter at home with wildlife and wilderness (Tanakh 38). When Jacob wants to laissez passer as Esau, his older brother, he puts goat hide on his hands and the neck (Tanakh 41). When Esau complains to Jacob that he is hungry, he demands that Jacob requite him some of the "red stuff," trading his birthright for a bowl of stew (Tanakh 38). Esau's appetite for "reddish stuff" is echoed in Lennie's demands for ketchup in Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck 804). Like Enkidu and Lennie, Esau is undone past a woman (Tanakh 43).

All the same, in the pairing of an unassimilated man with a heroic companion in Genesis, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and Of Mice and Men, relationship transcends private identity. George and Lennie's mythic significance lies in the nature of their archetypal connection with ane another. As characters, they are both complementary and opposite, two halves of a codified relationship and two parts of a single unit. Their antecedents in the older stories—Jacob and Esau, Gilgamesh and Enkidu—are brothers. Steinbeck'due south pair wears the aforementioned clothes (Steinbeck 797-798) and speaks a single voice (Steinbeck 812, 815), brothers in behavior if not past birth.

In the pairing of an unassimilated homo with a heroic companion in Genesis, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and Of Mice and Men, relationship transcends individual identity.

Of the two, George is sharper and worldlier, "small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp potent features" (Steinbeck 798). Just every bit Jacob in Genesis conducts business organization shrewdly (Tanakh 47), George proves capable of negotiating, manipulating, and conducting concern with surprising skill (Steinbeck 802, 842). Gilgamesh, too, is savvy, smoothing the mode for his quest by manipulating the powers that be in Uruk (Gilgamesh 72). The figures of George, Jacob, and Giglamesh dominate each of the fraternal relationship, not by seniority only through their ability to integrate with society and play by its rules.

While the less expert, unassimilated character remains a social weight on his socially good partner, this drag is accepted by both parties. Though "Lennie's a God damn nuisance virtually of the time" (Steinbeck 41), George feels the obligation to protect him at any toll. For Jacob, Esau represents a office of reality itself, unavoidable and equally permanent. The fear of Esau felt by Jacob is significant and suggests Carl Jung'south concept of the Shadow self. Besides, Lennie and Enkidu tin can be seen in terms of fear and Shadow—Jung's term for the suppressed only active elements of the unconscious (Jung 146). The tie that binds each pair of characters is deep, nighttime, and definitive. Viewed in social terms, the unassimilated man in all three stories prevents his more socially adept partner from fully inbound into and succeeding in the earth. The psychological dynamic that results creates conflict: the socialized grapheme must eliminate his animalistic, amoral, and unassimilated Shadow self to attain consummate social integration.

Viewed in social terms, the unassimilated human being in all three stories prevents his more socially expert partner from fully entering into and succeeding in the earth.

Merely the dominant partner has other gifts every bit well. George, a "smart little guy" (Steinbeck 825), is able to read the signs in a situation and, in a way, prophesy the future. Similarly, both Jacob and Gilgamesh possess the power of divination, interpreting dreams (Gilgamesh 78) and seeing visions—the stairway to sky—while wrestling with angels (Tanakh 43, 52). Early in Of Mice and Men, George predicts trouble with Curley's wife (Steinbeck 820), repeatedly voicing his anxiety virtually the probable consequence: "She's gonna make a mess. They's gonna be a bad mess about her" (Steinbeck 835). Though this sounds to united states like common sense, no other graphic symbol in Of Mice and Men "gets information technology" as George does. The other men in the bunkhouse recognize Curley'southward married woman every bit a threat, but none sees or says what seems inevitable.

The final vision described in The Epic of Gilgamesh is particularly remarkable in relation to George's prophetic power in Of Mice and Men. Lamenting over his dying brother, Gilgamesh cries, "The dream was marvelous merely the terror was corking; nosotros must treasure the dream whatever the terror; for the dream has shown that misery comes at concluding to the salubrious human . . . ." (Gilgamesh 93). In this mode Gilgamesh reads the concluding dream of Enkidu in which Enkidu is approached by a adult female who questions him earlier awakening "like a homo drained of blood who wanders alone in a waste of rushes; like ane whom the bailiff has seized and his eye pounds with terror" (Gilgamesh 92-93). In narrative detail and poetic imagery, this passage presages the climactic conclusion of Of Mice and Men: Lennie flees afterwards beingness questioned past a woman; terrified, he moves alone through the brush forth the Salinas River. His dream of disposed rabbits in a happy time to come with George dies, similar Lennie himself—and similar Enkidu, who leaves his bereaved partner Gilgamesh in "misery," muttering nigh failed dreams.

Of Mice and Men: Social Commentary or Timeless Myth?

Applying Jungian psychoanalytical theory to Of Mice and Men is non the most mutual critical approach to John Steinbeck's most widely read novel. The social realism of the text and its topical themes relating to migrant labor, disenfranchisement, and the American Dream typically take precedence over readings that emphasize the work's psychological elements, raising this question: Can a work of social realism exist read as myth or as psychological allegory?

In response, one might argue that the simplicity of setting, character, and dialog—as well as the deliberate employ of types and stereotypes (racial, gendered, professional person, intellectual, and class-based)—invites both political and psychological/symbolic interpretation. As noted by John Steinbeck's sometime-friend, the mythologist Joseph Campbell, formalized tropes of graphic symbol and setting are precisely the stuff of myth (Campbell 12-xv). As much as Of Mice and Men may exist read as a social-realist text, therefore, it is realistic only insofar equally it is interested in the social and political issues of its era. In style and formula it falls neatly into the timeless categories of symbolic and myth literature, forms of narrative in which the application of Carl Jung's insights are particularly fruitful.

Can a work of social realism exist read as myth or equally psychological allegory?

The archetypal pair represented by George and Lennie in Of Mice and Men evokes 2 principles of Jungian psychoanalytic theory: the Shadow and the transcendent function, concepts related to the individual ego's relationship with the unconscious. As in the case of Jacob and Esau, the unassimilated graphic symbol is associated with impulsive, irrational, and anti-social behavior. Like Lennie, Esau represents the Jungian Shadow, characterized by "uncontrolled or scarcely controlled emotions [. . .] like a archaic" and "singularly incapable of moral judgment" (Jung 146). The individual ego both desires and fears communion with this dark element of the unconscious: in the end the ego wants to exorcise the Shadow in an ultimately transcendent function.

If Lennie is the submerged Shadow, George is the ruling ego—aware, socialized and civilized—for whom the threat of the unconscious will exist until the transcendent function is enacted and the Shadow has been purged by being brought to lite. Co-ordinate to Carl Jung, this takes place when the two forces, ego and Shadow, achieve a direct and "compensatory relation" to one another (Jung 294). The means may exist aesthetic, as the ego attempts to formalize the formless unconscious and the repressed unconscious attempts to "ascension" into conscious mind. In this way the transcendent part "manifests itself as a quality of conjoined opposites" (Jung 298); the goal is for the ego to detect the "courage to be oneself" (Jung 300), a state of psychological singleness that George accomplishes when he shoots Lennie.

If Lennie is the submerged Shadow, George is the ruling ego—aware, socialized and civilized—for whom the threat of the unconscious will exist until the transcendent function is enacted.

Thus George and Lennie can be interpreted equally ii parts of ane "mind," symbolically undergoing the necessary procedure of overcoming a latent fix of "wild" impulses that impede full social integration. As long equally George keeps Lennie with him, he will never "stay in a true cat house all nighttime long" or "set in a pool room and play cards or shoot pool" (Steinbeck 804). Impulsive, ungovernable, and "incapable of moral judgment," Lennie holds George back from normal social activity. When Candy shows George the dead body of Curley's wife, George's social futurity in the anticipated aftermath is his first business. When Candy asks George if the programme to purchase their ain ranch is off, George replies past forecasting a future in which he can "stay all night in some lousy true cat house. Or I'll set in some pool room till ever'body goes home" (Steinbeck 868).

But Lennie's representation of the unconscious goes across his relationship with George. Uniquely within the world of Of Mice and Men, Lennie has the ability to bring out the impulsiveness latent in other characters and to engage them in conversations almost dreams, resentments, and other emotions. His conversation with Crooks demonstrates this trait, as Crooks breaks with social convention to let Lennie into his room and explore hidden feelings that he suppresses with everyone else (Steinbeck 849). A similar dynamic characterizes Lennie's conversation with Curley'southward wife when she divulges things that she "ain't told [. . .] to nobody before" and "ought'n to" (Steinbeck 863). Non only is Lennie incapable of cocky-command; he inspires this incapacity, however briefly, in others every bit well.

Not only is Lennie incapable of self-control; he inspires this incapacity, however briefly, in others besides.

Duality of mind and will is a common theme in mythology and in modern literature. Steinbeck'due south use of the archetypal grapheme pair in Of Mice and Men dramatizes this duality, offer us a deeper understanding of its meaning. As in much American writing of the 1930s, social repression and human disenfranchisement office socially and politically every bit facts of gimmicky life. But they are besides internalized. Ironically, the humble American dream of property buying is aligned in the narrative with irrational, unconscious urges, with the primitive and undeveloped Shadow represented by Lennie. To survive in the difficult world of Of Mice and Men, characters like Crooks suppress their want for friendship in favor of beingness accepted, abstractly and impersonally, by the grouping. Characters like Curley's wife are shunned and isolated considering they are associated with desires that the group considers taboo. Lennie, unassimilated and unsocialized, accesses these suppressed elements in others, bringing them briefly into the open until he can be eliminated.

Ironically, the humble American dream of belongings ownership is aligned in the narrative with irrational, unconscious urges, with the primitive and undeveloped Shadow represented past Lennie.

On a literary and functional level, Steinbeck's archetypal character pair serve as a vehicle for demonstrating social values and for considering a compelling question: What must be eliminated from consciousness—from the ego personality—in order for an isolated individual to integrate with social club? Steinbeck's answer is painfully clear. As one partner dies, a path opens for the survivor. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, the survivor is fabricated king. In Genesis he becomes the father of nations. Unlike Genesis and Gilgamesh, notwithstanding, Of Mice and Men constitutes a sad and somber commentary on group values and cultural norms. To survive, a man must put away his innocence and his love for "prissy things." He must exist brutish and ruthless. He must not dream.

What must be eliminated from consciousness—from the ego personality—in society for an isolated individual to integrate with social club? Steinbeck's answer is painfully clear.

By the time Of Mice and Men ends, George has acknowledged and accepted the severity of this requirement, proving his emotional and psychological fettle for social survival in a hard environment. His world is heartless, just he can cope: He has eliminated his unacceptable impulses—embodied in Lennie—by slaying them. If we accept the literary critic Alfred Kazin's precept that "psychology is always less true than art," we can promise, at to the lowest degree, that applying Jungian psychoanalytical criticism to Of Mice and Men does non lower Steinbeck's fine art to the level of psychology merely raises psychology to the level of art. Seen in this light, the power of Steinbeck's most popular novel can be located, in big part, in the author's use of mythic archetypes to explore a psychological truth.

Works Cited

Anonymous. The Epic of Gilgamesh. London: Penguin Books. 1972. Print.

Bearding. Tanakh. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society. 1985. Impress.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a 1000 Faces. 3rd Edition. Novato, California: New Globe Library. 1949. Print.

Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. New York: Random Firm. 1929. Print.

Jung, Carl. "The Transcendent Function." The Portable Jung. New York: Penguin Books. 1976. 273-300. Print.

Kazin, Afred. The Inmost Leaf. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1941. Print.

Kesey, Ken. 1 Flew Over the Cuckoo'due south Nest. New York: Penguin Books. 1962. Impress.

Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck: Novels and Stories 1932-1937. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1994. 795-878. Print.

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