Cultural Influence
The character of Lennie Small is used as the standard for legal mental retardation for executing a prisoner in Texas. If a person appears smarter than Lennie Small in an interview then he may be executed. If he does not then he cannot understand his crime(s).
John Steinbeck's son, Thomas Steinbeck, who is personally against the death penalty, has protested that this legal practice is a misappropriation and insult of his father's work.
Read more about this topic: Of Mice And Men
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or influence:
“At times it seems that the media have become the mainstream culture in children’s lives. Parents have become the alternative. Americans once expected parents to raise their children in accordance with the dominant cultural messages. Today they are expected to raise their children in opposition to it.”
—Ellen Goodman (20th century)
“If morality had naturally no influence on human passions and actions, it were in vain to take such pains to inculcate it; and nothing would be more fruitless than that multitude of rules and precepts with which all moralists abound.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)