The Role Of Silence In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

423 Words2 Pages
There are many powerful literary elements used by Steinbeck in the novel, Of Mice and Men. In fact, the one that can reveal the most to the reader is the one which says nothing. Silence is the force which incites conflict, sadness, and helps lead to a better understanding of how the characters think. The scene in which they discuss, and eventually carry out, the killing of Candy’s dog is the prime example of the power of unspoken words. A so called ”Elephant in the room” is something that is obvious to everyone, but the strange thing about it is that no one feels obliged to or wants to talk about it. One event in the story that uses silence in a variety of different ways is the euthanasia of Candy’s dog. This particular event in the novel is a main cause of controversy within the story. With Candy thinking that…show more content…
The death is on everyone’s mind, but no one has the penchant to talk about it because even though it is on all of their minds, the men know that talking about it cannot help now. After a long break in dialogue, the characters begin their conversations yet again, but these conversations are withholding the one thing that everyone wants to discuss. “George shuffled the cards noisily and dealt them. Whit drew a scoring board to him and set the pegs to start. Whit said,’I guess you guys really come here to work.’” The literal silence of the situation has now faded, but now the author introduced a new type of silence, the soundlessness of pointless speech filled with distractions of their real problems. After the gun-shot signaling the demise of Candy’s dog no one talks, but in order to try to end this daunting silence, Whit makes an almost random statement to start the dialogue once more. His attempts at speech are just attempts at killing the silence, but have no important meaning to the thoughts on everyone’s minds and are therefor another just form of
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