Friday Feature: Of Mice and Men
Today's most popular books are fantastical flights of imagination: Harry Potter, the Percy Jackson series, Lord of the Rings. In today's literary market, books that act as an investigative reflection of American problems are a rarity, and yet, it is books like these that achieve history-changing reforms in the US government and American society.
The Jungle, the Upton Sinclair novel based on Chicago's meat-packing industry, led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) through it's repulsive descriptions of unsanitary factory practices. However, this was not the book's aim. Sinclair wrote the book in hopes of achieving better regulation of factory workers who labored in dangerous environments for inhumanely low wages.
Another book seeking better treatment of workers, John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, follows the heartbreaking story of a mentally disabled worker, Lennie, who is subjected to an irrational witch hunt, no consideration taken for his unstable mental state. Lennie's eventual demise highlights the serious issues faced when the mentally disabled are ignored or shoved aside.
Of Mice and Men acted as an eyeopener for a self-absorbed America, increasing knowledge about the plight faced by mentally or physically disabled workers. Still, America must work to achieve consistant equality for the mentally disabled. Lennie's problems, and the way that they are ignored by the people around him, will hopefully continue to inspire American policymakers to impose more regulation upon businesses to protect disabled workers.
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