Of_Mice_and_Men_Darkness_and_Light_Essay

Steinbeck uses the images of darkness and light in ‘Of Mice and Men’. In the novel of mice and men, John Steinbeck uses Darkness and light to create suspense, feelings and moods in the novel. He uses darkness and light to alter our perspectives on the characters and the settings. The way darkness is usually portrayed as ‘evil’ and mysterious as you cannot see into the darkness. It is the unknown and spooky for what you might find, it could be seen as a lie blocking the truth, death, however you could also think of it as comforting for when it’s a dark night outside and you are curled up around the sofa with a blanket it is really comforting. Darkness does not always equate to evil just as light doesn’t always equate to good. In light you think of yellow happy colours with hope (every cloud has a silver lining) and is joyful, yet light can blind you from the truth. At the beginning of the novel everything seems too good to be true which always means something bad would normally happen. The way the water had “slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight” shows like paradise and something that you would dream about, “willows fresh and green with every spring” which seems untouched by a human hand as its just too pretty and delicate with bright fresh colours used. Then when you get into the novel Steinbeck uses lots of light and darkness in different ways. Once Lennie and George were all settled in and were sitting in the bunk house “although there was evening brightness showing through the window of the bunkhouse, inside it was dusk” which shows that the light tries to get in but never manages to penetrate the darkness. This is important to the themes of the story as darkness could be seen as more deeper and dense, blocking away the majority of light coming around the bunkhouse. Through out the story it shows that sometimes sunshine peeps through and when it does you have joy, however soon enough it is overcrowded by darkness. Also, when we Lennie and George first meet Curley’s wife as she “first appears in the bunkhouse, both Lennie and George notice that the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway is cut off. This represents the feeling that she is going to be bad news. The way the last Gilmour of sunshine is blocked off it is like the first Gilmour of hope has just been faded away. It shows that as much as she might look pretty inside her outer body is going to be blocking the sunshine from getting through which in contrast is like evil overcrowding the darkness once again. Also, when Lennie goes to find the stable buck for some company when George and everyone else goes into town, “in the stable buck’s room a small electric globe threw a meagre yellow light” The light in Crooks’ room is ‘meagre’. This suggests that he doesn’t have much happiness in his life and he doesn’t have much hope to aspire to be someone. Through out his life he would have grown up to have been treated poorly as he has a different colour skin to other people. If someone keeps being pushed down and knocked down for everything they do, of course you are going to have little hope and light in your life. Also, it could show that he doesn’t want any attention as if he had all the lights on it would show he wants to be seen and everyone to look at him however, he only has a small light on which could suggest that he doesn’t want company or to be seen and spoken to. As the story starts drawing to it’s end and Lennie has just done something that will eventually cost his life no matter what way you look at it, and as he rushes towards the bush George told him to go to “the light climbed out the valley”. This implies that as the story reaches its tragic conclusion the light is gradually seeping away, letting darkness take its course. The darkness could also mean that as the light has now left the valley the darkness seems as if all hope has deserted Lennie and George and that there is no hope for either of them and for what is going to happen next. As Curley and the rest of the men advance on him, “already the sun had left the valley to go climbing up the slopes of the Gablian Mountains, and the hill hope were rosy in the sun” this implies that over the mountain is where you are going to find the ‘silver lining’ and where you will eventually find happiness that was once upon you yet also it shows that the darkness was approaching Lennie which meant his death was approaching alongside the darkness. As this is the end of the novel, yet in the same place as the beginning of the novel you can see how at the beginning everything is beautiful with lush green leaves and water with the sun glistening from it, to now where the sun has left Lennie and “the sycamore leaves turned up their silver sides, the brown, dry leaves on the ground scudded a few feet” showing that compared to before when the leaves were “mottles, white, recumbent leaves” that shows that as much as everything had changed in Lennie and Georges life, it also had changed in natures life. How so much can change in only 3 days.