“One day our descendants will find it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead unique identities. of each of us as complex human beings” (QuoteGarden.com). This quote from Franklin Thomas is a great example of past marginalization and mistreatment, two issues that were highlighted in the books read over the summer. Throughout A Lesson Before Dying, Burned Alive, and Of Mice and Men, marginalization and mistreatment were immanent. In John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men, some characters experience multiple instances of both mistreatment and marginalization. Throughout the book, Curley's wife is mistreated due to her female gender. The farm workers always called her a "vagabond" and George once said, "I've seen them poisoned before, but I never seen a prison baiter worse than her" (Steinbeck, 32). When George says this, he warns Lennie to stay away from Curley's wife because he thinks she is very effective at deceiving men in order to get what she wants. Lennie was also mistreated throughout the book, not because of his gender, but because of his developmental delay. He was even neglected by his own friend, George, who constantly thought about a life without Lennie. George continually blamed Lennie for causing him to lose his job and have to move across the country (Steinbeck, age 11). Unlike Lennie, Crooks faced discrimination because of his race and color. An example from the book would be: “Where is the damn nigger” (Steinbeck, 29)? Just like in this example, throughout the book Curley referred to Crooks as a "nigger",...... middle of paper ......k had many ideal examples of various types of marginalization and bad treatments, including those regarding gender, race and people with disabilities. Where Of Mice and Men presented various examples of abuse, Souad's Burned Alive focused on a single instance of abuse: the abuse of women in a Middle Eastern society. The marginalization and exploitation of African Americans was also highlighted in the novel A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines through the treatment of Jefferson and his community. Many people throughout history have hoped for a better future, free from marginalization and mistreatment, and one of those people was Martin Luther King Jr. He once said, "I dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” (BrainyQuote.com).