from Holt Elements of Liteature for Grades 11-12

Literature Circle Culminating Activity

WriteSmart Model Bank

Critical Review

A critical review identifies a work, establishes criteria for evaluation, and

makes a judgment about the work. Use this template to help you reach a

conclusion.

Work

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Criteria for Evaluation (Main Purpose for writing the evaluation)

How is the characterization of a mentally disabled protagonist developed in Mice and Men?

Element

Character

Critique

John Steinbeck develops a simple character who must interact in a complex world, that is filled with unknowable pitfalls. Lenny evokes compassion because he is always trying to make the better decision but almost always fails.

Support

Not realizing his physical strength, it is quickly established that this disability will be Lenny’s setback and Steinbeck introduces this tragic flaw at the start of the novel when Lenny inadvertently suffocates his puppy by embracing him too tightly (12-15).

Conflict

Steinbeck shows the disconnection between Lenny’s intentions, that are always too intense, and that cause major characters to react negatively towards his behavior.

Curly’s wife, a very friendly character and an ally to both George and Lenny is murdered following an attempt to let Lenny touch her hair. Lenny panicks when she begins to scream at him to stop touching her hair and strangles her, although he thinks he’s just keeping her quiet.

Characterization

What is our opinion about George’s characterization of Lenny’s disability? In George, Steinbeck creates a compassionate, yet weary foil to Lenny; on one hand, George feels liable to protect Lenny from himself, but as the novel progresses, George realizes that Lenny cannot be taught to do good.

George must make the decision to continue to keep Lenny safe when he touches a woman’s dress, causing the other migrant workers to chase them off (10-11).

Conclusion/Recommendation: The development of a mentally disabled character in Of Mice and Men is crafted by Steinbeck in heartwrenching scenes that place Lenny in various situations that readers hope the protoganist will overcome the gray areas of human behavior that keep pushing him to act out violently. Overall, the plight of a disabled character is only solved through death. Readers can only imagine the unknowable horrors that Lenny could have continued to exact upon vulnerable characters in the novel.

Critical Review

A critical review expresses an opinion about a creative work, such as a story, a novel, a film, a performance, a sculpture, or other work. A review should contain the following elements:

clearly stated criteria for the opinions
details from or about the work to support the opinion
a clear organizational structure
a thoughtful conclusion that summarizes the ideas

On “Harrison Bergeron”

Sherman Brown

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s “Harrison Bergeron” is for many readers a hilarious science-fiction story satirizing the tendency of our society to provide equal opportunity for everybody. It depicts a society of the future in which a government official known as the Handicapper General enforces laws that require people with special talents or natural gifts to be handicapped (with weights on their legs, for example, to make the graceful more clumsy, or earphones that blast unnerving sounds into the ears of unusually intelligent people to prevent them from thinking clearly) so they can be “average” like everybody else. As a satire, the story mocks human behavior in order to point out the dangers in taking certain social programs too far. In this case the story seems to want to celebrate individual talent and warn against what might happen to a society if government efforts to ensure equal employment opportunities for everybody were taken to their most ridiculous extreme.

Vonnegut seems to take the position that equal-opportunity efforts and affirmative-action rules will lead to mediocrity for everyone. In my view, Vonnegut’s story mocks a positive and healthy social opportunity and reveals a lack of respect for what equal opportunity and affirmative action are intended to achieve.

Vonnegut’s attitude is particularly evident in one scene. Hazel Bergeron suggests that her husband, George (whose unusual strength and intelligence require him to wear a number of handicapping devices), secretly reduce the weight of his handicap for a few hours each day so he can get some rest. George replies that, aside from risking a large fine and imprisonment, he would be committing an act that would threaten the whole structure of their society:

“If I tried to get away with it,” said George, “then other people’d get away with it—and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

George’s explanation of the purpose and importance of handicapping shows Vonnegut’s failure to recognize an important point about equal-opportunity laws. Neither handicaps nor affirmative-action rules serve to eliminate competition. In fact, they increase competition by making sure it is based on real ability and not on race or social class. Handicapping can actually increase competition. For example, in sports such as golf and horse racing, handicaps ensure competition by making contestants more equal.

Equally disturbing is Vonnegut’s picture of a world that has reached “equality.” His model of equality is represented by Hazel Bergeron, who has “average intelligence, which meant that she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts.” Moreover, shortly after her physically and mentally gifted son is kidnapped by the government (for being too talented), she sits entranced by the TV, unable to remember why tears are running down her cheeks. The disturbing message here is that to be equal, all people must be made stupid. Yet the purpose of equal opportunity is not to bring talented people down to the level of others. It is to allow all people an equal chance to use their abilities and talents.

Vonnegut’s story may be superficially funny, but his humor depends on a snobbish and elitist outlook that ridicules important goals for a democratic society. Taken to its extreme, the attitude toward human beings expressed in “Harrison Bergeron” is even more dangerous than the most extreme version of the movement for social reform that the story satirizes.