Tension in Of Mice and Men

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Tension in Of Mice and Men

The episode I am going to use to show how tension is created in "OF Mice and Men" is when Curley has a fight with Lennie. This section starts near the end of chapter three.

It is obvious that somewhere within "Of Mice and Men" Lennie is going to have a confrontation with Curley because of the clues earlier in the book. For example when Lennie and George first meet Curley he is some what unwelcoming and confrontational, "He glanced coldly at George and then at Lennie. His arms gradually bent at the elbows and his hands closed into fists." This seems like Curley is preparing himself for a fight and certainly isn´t the way I would act when I first met someone unless I was highly intimidated by the person, which I think Curley is. After this we find out, from Candy, that Curley does not like big men, "Curley´s like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys." Candy later says this is probably because he isn´t a "big guy" himself. He also says that Curley spends most of his time picking scraps with big guys.
Yet again in chapter two George is warning Lennie to fight back if Curley starts anything, "You keep away from Curley…if the son-of-a-bitch socks you - let 'im have it." This shows that even George has realised that a confrontation is imminent, unfortunately Lennie is too dumb to understand what the danger is. This is a realistic reaction by George trying to protect Lennie considering they have grown up together.

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Introducing the element of danger, to Lennie, into the story right from the start results in a slow build up of tension all the way through the story because the reader is always trying to anticipate when the fight is going to happen. Also the confrontation between two of the main characters on the ranch is a clever idea because each time the two are mentioned together or in the same place tension will peak because a confrontation is even more likely at that point.

The section I am going to concentrate on starts with Slim, Curley, Carlson and Whit ...

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