Evaluate the effectiveness of the opening scenes of Gary Sinise's film of 'Of Mice and Men' in comparison with the impact of Steinbeck's opening to the novel.

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Evaluate the effectiveness of the opening scenes of Gary Sinise’s film of  ‘Of Mice and Men’ in comparison with the impact of Steinbeck’s opening to the novel.

Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men is a hard-hitting and powerful novel about 1930s America, in California. Steinbeck’s intention in the book Of Mice and Men was to show that American society was damaged in this time and also in those days people had a lot of hopes and dreams but the wouldn’t exist because people were too disaffected and selfish: ‘ nobody never gets to heaven and nobody never gets no land.’

Sinise’s film was made in 1992 with the two most important characters of the film; Gary Sinise as George and John Malkovich as Lennie. In general the film was good although it missed out some important features, which changes the meaning of the story. In this essay I am going to evaluate the effectiveness of the opening of the film in comparison with the impact of the novel.

The opening of the novel shows utopian natural life reminiscent of the Garden of Eden.  There are many adjectives are used at the beginning of the novel to convey a feeling of lively, fresh and vibrant life: ‘warm…deep and green, yellow sands …sunlight …golden…’ with natural things always lasting forever: ‘Strong and rocky…fresh and green with every spring.  Spring suggests rebirth and renewal. At the start of the book Steinbeck is saying that nature is alive and will last forever.  This is set up to compare to the lives of George and Lennie and all the other men who work on ranches across California. Also, all this shows harmony and the harmony includes animals: ‘deer’, ‘dogs’, ‘’coons’, ‘rabbits’ who all ‘come to drink in the dark’.  They don’t fight, they have a harmonious society.  In contrast to this is the human intervention when people destroy the landscape: ‘ a path beaten hard by boys…beaten hard by tramps who come wearily…’ Also there is an ash-pile made by ‘many fires’ which suggests that people are burning the trees and reducing nature to dust.  Men have also worn the tree down to smoothness by sitting on it.

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As soon as George and Lennie enter, the landscape ‘dies’.  This adds to the sense that humans destroy the land:

‘For a moment, the place was lifeless and then two men emerged from the path and came into the opening of the green pool.’

At first, George and Lennie are described as strangers.  Their names are not given and they are shown to be itinerant workers through their clothing: ‘Both wore black shapeless hats and denim trouser and coats.’  The word ‘shapeless’ suggests that the men have no direction of their life.  At the start of the ...

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