Carlson In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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Carlson The way Steinbeck portrays the character of Carlson makes me believe that Carlson is a fundamentally selfish individual, who is also insensitive. However it has to be considered that he is a victim of the 1930s depression. There are several reasons for this. The chief reason is that Carlson doesn’t consider anyone’s feelings. An example of this is that he thinks Candy’s dog should be shot because it’s old and smelly. He also thinks that Candy could have one of Slim’s puppies instead. However he can’t see that Candy might have an emotional attachment to his dog. For me this suggests that Carlson is insensitive and doesn’t care about anyone other than himself and he believes that he should always get what he wants. Another reason…show more content…
An example of this is when he shot Candy’s dog and he doesn’t apologise to Candy, but instead he cleans his gun in full view of everyone. This demonstrates that Carlson doesn’t feel sorry at all for shooting Candy’s dog and instead feels that Candy should apologise to him for having the dog for so long, and making him put up with the smell of the dog. However, some people might argue that Carlson is a sensitive and caring individual because before Carlson shot Candy’s dog he said “This ol’ dog suffers hisself all the time.” because “He’s all stiff with rheumatism.” This could suggest that Carlson is sensitive and caring because he wants the dog to be put out of its misery and he thinks that nobody should be made to suffer, not even a dog and he even says “I wisht somebody shoot me if I got an’ a cripple.”, which suggests that he wouldn’t want to be in pain and nobody else would either. Although I disagree with this because I think that Carlson is just trying to find another excuse for killing the dog. I think this because all the other reasons that Carlson has suggested have been reasons that suggest that he doens’t really care how the dog feels and he just cares about himself and his own wellbeing. I also think this because throughout the book he has acted selfishly and insensitively and I cannot recall another moment, when he was acting as if he was caring about somebody

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