In conclusion, Steinbeck presents Slim as not only friendly and welcoming, but as a strong leader who is willing to guide the ranch workers through their life. Slim is there to represent the positive and strong people who lived during the 1930’s even if they didn’t have much; they didn’t let it affect them to a great extent.
What do we learn about Curley from the extract?
Curley is one of ‘Of Mice and Men’s’ major characters. Although he does not appear to hold a central role, he is very important in other respects. The first of these is the way in which he treats George and Lennie, and the ranch workers in general on the ranch. Curley is the boss’ son; therefore he acts like he is the boss himself. He orders the others around, and, although it is true that he does hold some power on the ranch, he does not hold any respect from the workers. He is nasty towards them, treating them as though they are below him, and often trying to pick fights.
In the extract, Curley starts a fight on Lennie, for no relevant reason; “No big son-of-a-bitch is gonna laugh at me. I’ll show you who’s yella.” It’s clear that he has wanted to fight with him since he first met him, his desire to fight with people all the time shows two things. Firstly, it shows inferiority complex; Curley is short, and therefore is constantly trying to be better than “big guys”. In the quote above, he calls Lennie a ‘big son-of-a-bitch’, this shows how he is angrier towards the fact that Lennie is bigger than him than who Lennie is as a person. Secondly, it shows his aggression. Curley holds a fighting stance when he first encounters George and Lennie; “his arms gradually bent at the elbows and his hands closed into fists. He stiffened and went into a slight crouch.” According to Candy, Curley is an amateur boxer and is always picking fights, especially with guys who are bigger than he is. Ultimately, Curley is trying to prove his masculinity. Although the audience may feel anger towards the character of Curley for the way he is presented and the way he hurts Lennie, they may also feel sympathetic towards him. Curley must have lived a hard life, a life without friendship or love to have grown into a bitter, angry and defensive person that has a need to react with violence to every situation. Most lives in the 1930’s were tough, and Curley’s character may be there to show how even if someone is semi-privileged during these times, it doesn’t necessarily benefit them in all ways, it just gives them stability in one aspect of their life.
In conclusion, although Curley is shown in a very similar way throughout the whole novella, in this extract, it shows the true anger he inflicts on people since he starts a fight with Lennie even though he does nothing wrong and yet he still inflicts all of his anger on him very violently. From this extract, we learn how he is constantly trying to prove himself to be better than the other men on the ranch.
What do we learn about Lennie’s character from the extract?
From the moment we learn why Lennie and George are on the road, we realize that Lennie’s combination of small thinking and big body is bad news. Lennie doesn’t know his own strength, but he’s also unable to understand other people’s weaknesses. Lennie is best described as childlike; he embodies the best characteristics of a childish mentality: innocence, exuberance, and earnest love and trust, but he also embodies the worst: unchecked anger, irresponsibility, and an inability to connect his actions to their consequences.
A feature of Lennie that we learn from the novella and is supported heavily in this extract is the fact that he loves soft things, in this case, Curley’s wife’s hair that she allows him to stroke; “Lennie’s big fingers fell to stroking her hair.” This quote, specifically the word ‘stroking’ shows how he treats her hair like all other soft things he has petted, for example, the silk cloth, the mice and the puppies. This goes on to foreshadow her death, since he had previously lost the silk cloth, killed the mice and killed the puppy, this event happened just moments before the death of Curley’s wife. The audience may feel anxious at this point in the novella since her death has been foreshadowed over many different events related to Lennie.
We also learn that Lennie gets scared very easily and is frightened that George would find out if he did something wrong; “George gonna say I done a bad thing. He ain’t gonna let me tend no rabbits.” This quote shows how Lennie doesn’t want George to find out if he got into trouble because he’s scared that George wouldn’t let Lennie look after the rabbits they dreamed of having in their American Dream. Lennie’s mind focuses on one thing throughout the novella; that he dreams of having rabbits to pet; this is all he talks about when conversing with others on the ranch and having them that dream took away from him means a lot to him which is why he is always frightened that George will not let him own rabbits. Lennie can’t comprehend that if he had just let go of her hair, she would be fine, he reverts to trying to get rid of the problem, to have her be quiet, yet he doesn’t know his own strength and so ends up accidently killing her. This has quite an effect on the audience because they know that Lennie can’t return to the ranch, and some may have already understood the foreshadowed events of Lennie dying; through Candy’s dog being shot, or because they believe that is what will happen, and so will be upset because they know George and Lennie’s dream will not happen.
In conclusion, from this extract we learn how Lennie is very frightened of what could happen if he did a bad thing, yet we know he can’t understand how to handle situations and therefore the bad things end up happening anyway. This shows how Lennie doesn’t know his own strength and doesn’t understand how he can do damage, since his mind doesn’t work like ours.
Natalie Barron
