One of the human rights issues featured in the story is the treatment of people with mental disorders. Lennie Small, who is a mentally handicapped man, is often found doing what society sees as ludicrous things, like petting dead mice, but ti him, it feels just natural and normal. People tend to isolate and treat him unfairly because of the peculiarity of his actions and also because of their lack of knowledge about mental disabilities since, during the period of the Great Depression, mental health was not a common subject.
