“One day our descendants will think 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 of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings” (QuoteGarden.com). This quote from Franklin Thomas is a great example of marginalization and mistreatment of the past, both themes made very evident in the books read over the summer. In 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 several examples of both mistreatment and marginalization. Throughout the book Curley's wife is mistreated because of her feminine gender. The farm hands always called her a 'tramp' and George once said, "I've seen them poisoned before, but I never saw any worse piece of bait than her" (Steinbeck, 32). When George says this, he is warning Lennie to stay away from Curley's wife because he thinks she is very effective at deceiving men to get what she wants. Lennie was also mistreated throughout the book, although not because of his gender but due to the fact that he was developmentally delayed. He was neglected even by his own friend, George, who constantly thought of a life without Lennie. George continually blamed Lennie for causing him to lose his job and forcing him to move across the country (Steinbeck, 11). Unlike Lennie, Crooks was discriminated against considering his race and color. An example from the book might be: “Where the hell is that damn nigger” (Steinbeck, 29)? Just as in this example, throughout the book Curley referred to Crooks as a 'nigger',... center of paper... k had many ideal examples of various types of marginalization and mistreatment, including those involving gender, race and handicapped. Where Of Mice and Men featured several examples of mistreatment, Souad's Burned Alive was based on just one case of mistreatment: the mistreatment of women in a Middle Eastern society. The marginalization and exploitation of African Americans was also made very evident 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 children will one day live in a nation in who will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character" (BrainyQuote.com).