How does John Steinbeck create atmosphere in the barn in Chapter 5?

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How does John Steinbeck create atmosphere in the barn scene?

At the beginning of chapter 5 Steinbeck creates an image in the readers mind. He does this by describing the scenery as peaceful and unsettled. To emphasise this he adds in the simile, “like a mountain slope to the other end of the barn.” Steinbeck repeats this technique in the start of every section to show that everything is quiet and still for only a while until it is disturbed by man or animals. This can be shown through the quote “quiet before the storm”. This quote means that everything is subtle and calm before something bad happens.  Steinbeck uses verbs such as “stamped and rattled” to show the disruption of the peacefulness and to convey that the animals are unsettled. This suggests that something may be beginning to happen because animals usually are able to sense when something wrong is happening. It begins to calm down again when Steinbeck describes the atmosphere in the barn using adjectives. “Stroked” and “softly” shows that Lennie can be caring towards people and things and although he killed the puppy he did it accidentally. He has a childlike nature but a strong man’s structure. “Why do you got to get killed?” indicates that Lennie was almost like the victim and the puppy wasn’t. This emphasises that he doesn’t know his own strength or his own mind. He is just as innocent as a child and doesn’t know what he’s doing. Steinbeck has repeated two similar incidents that he just wants to stroke things yet ends up scaring or hurting        them.

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Inside the barn it is very quiet, isolated and sombre. However, outside of the barn it is very lively, jovial and competitive. The dead puppy contradicts the atmosphere. It is no longer a peaceful atmosphere, but instead a tense one. John Steinbeck has described the atmosphere like this because it is saying that it is quiet now, but there are some controversial things to happen. This is because outside of the barn it is very happy because they do not know what Lennie has done but inside of the barn it is very quiet and sad because Lennie has just ...

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