Lennie seems to secretly overcome his wishes and shortcomings. ‘He watched George with an open mouth.’ Lennie does not interact like others around him and does not get the joy from doing so, but he makes this up by being entertained by seeing others. Steinbeck invokes our sympathies like this. On the other hand, Isaac’s failures are not continuous; his fate brings a mixture of ill fate and a period of ‘high-times’ in life:
‘He reaped at last the reward of his long and patient suffering under adversity, by getting an excellent place, keeping it for seven years and …’
In addition, it is important to realise that if Lennie would be given the role of an unpredictable character like Isaac, the American Dream would surely be within George and Lennie’s reach. Thus, this fact has a great influence on the portrayal of Lennie’s persona. Steinbeck wants to show that dreams are not for everybody. Lennie does not get a high-time, so his fate is not so important as are his thoughts and wants, which are real and give him comfort. Thinking about rabbits and the patch of land seems to be the sole reason for Lennie to live. His pride and contention (Lennie smiled to himself, ‘Strong as a bull’, he repeated) are very important to keep him motivated, as he does not have a full realisation of his actions. An incredible but impossible path to the dream, which, to Lennie was life and death, was gradually becoming more distant.
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Isaac’s sub-conscious mind happens to be a more powerful force and gradually through to the end, is his frailty. ‘O Lord help me! Lord help me, alone in this place’ are the words of his dreams. Isaac is very much helpless, vulnerable, calling for the Lord in his sub-conscious mind. This is similar to Lennie whose sub-conscious mind always seems to be at work as his mind is too weak to distinguish the moral ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Steinbeck chooses to deny Lennie any type of authority and even refuse him the right to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. This is very unlike Isaac, who may be naïve, easily gullible and manipulated, but still has enough authority to make a decision on the fate of his married life. In Isaac, his subconscious mind is powerful, but to a lesser extent as it seizes him only when he is alone.
Lennie and George’s path to achieving their dream was supposedly obstructed due to Lennie’s constant blunders by his own fault or indicated through Steinbeck’s instrument of foreshadowing (eg death of Candy’s dog). Their fate to be gradually doomed is almost resurrected, but not asserted, unlike Isaac whose ‘ill-luck was proverbial among his neighbours’ and thus, it is easy to think Isaac’s final fate would not be for the best. Similarly, the audience can assume Isaac was hopeless. This is quite unlike Lennie, who was gaining confidence and re-assurances that he would get the rabbits even after the blunders. He had hope.
Isaac’s life is like the curve of bad, then good, then bad again. Overall, his luck does not change but as he becomes more self-warned and aware, his luck is not to be blamed anymore. It is his actions to be blamed now, as for the mature person. In other words, Isaac is slowly opening up and maturing, from a big baby to an adult. This is not the same case form Lennie. George and Lennie’s lives are very insecure and possibly, meaningless, as we know that trouble lay ahead of them. Despite Lennie’s physical strengths and size, his child-like attributes make him comparable to the ‘dead mouse in his pocket’. Unlike Lennie’s fatal flaw in not being able to control his strength, nothing is very important about Isaac’s physical attributes. It is only his thoughts and feelings, which are unable to meet up the challenge. Collins narrative makes us think Isaac has so much to take care of and to do. His narrative carries a great many perspectives. Steinbeck, oppositely, holds up and emphasises few very simplistic points in Lennie, his wants, flaws and incapability. This is even evident in the style of dialogue, where Lennie is constantly repeating himself on several instances.
Lennie and Isaac seem to be characterisations from wholly different perspectives. Their intentions are different, their wants are different and their dreams are different, but I thought their similarities lay on their ability to keep a silent hope alive, keep their dreams alive and influence others to join in the dream which will only prove a fantasy; but it is the characters’ steadfastness on their feelings that were highlighted most and served as a companion and comfort in times of solitude. For example, Lennie recalls his thoughts on their future farm after he is abused by Lennie to keep himself happy. Both characters are less intelligent than those around them, no matter to what extent or degree, but it is the times of hardship and powerlessness that lead to their tragic ends. Both Isaac and Lennie are led to be doomed by Steinbeck and Collins, as they are weak and there is no place for the survival of the weak in a world full of corruption, manipulation and exploitation. The greatest lesson I learned was that no matter how much the weak are mentally overtaken by others, there would always be their one companion who stands tall besides him. I thought Lennie and George almost seemed like a single character, not once emphasised and insisted on using the word ‘our’ to mean their plans. Lennie was George’s fuelling power and launching pad for hopes, feelings and paradoxically, his failures. It was because of Lennie that the ‘American Dream’ did never mean a fantasy for George. Steinbeck seems to have purposely made Lennie so repetitive and primitive in his
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thoughts. The novel’s plot allows room for others to drain their feelings onto Lennie as he is almost reaction-less and that is why his deep bondage with George develops.
‘You was poking you big ears into our business,’ George said.
On the other hand, Isaac does not always have his life-long companion, his mother besides him to protect himself. After the death of his mother, Isaac takes refuge in his subconscious mind and superstition. Isaac does not realise what is going on inside him. But I feel it is his mind, which is as capable of recognising the good-bad moral mark and is far from purity, quite unlike Lennie, who was utterly defenceless and could not obviously survive this world by himself, without George, that saves him from the greatest tragedy of death. His weakness to face manipulation from Rebecca was clear, but the power of his inner self to take shield against the vicious world was also there. Nobody could disarm Isaac from this strongest defence, his inner self. He is a powerful soul, and a realistic person at the stage of manhood, but with inner deficiencies, which are incurable. Isaac was to suffer his fate by every inch, but through no fault of his own. This causes great grief.
‘The knife was in his possession – the world was before him, but a new distrust of her – a vague, unspeakable, superstitious dread had overcome him.’
Collins intends to show how weak the human mind is even with all the material defences. I thought Isaac’s fate was sealed, so it was impossible to rescue him from this misfortunate world. This is unlike Lennie, whose death, so-called a tragedy for the interests of the ‘American Dream’ was the blessing, which unlocked him from the hands of the malicious world, but through the hands of a pure friend, George. It may be impossible to swallow the fact that in this world full of selfish people, there are two people who have no real grudges against each other. This is true for both Isaac and Lennie and for the sake of authorial purposes, an amazing reality in front of this world full of fantasy, an example being the ‘American Dream’ and Isaacs ‘changed life upon marriage with Rebecca’.
IMPROVE ON:
- Language use in the essay
- Focus on Author’s techniques & use of language
- Focus on characterisation
- Endings: Maybe Lennie died and not Isaac because Steinbeck didn’t want Lennie to get the dream or …
- Formal vocabulary
- Appropriate linking words
- Appropriate style
- Comparison of language use & techniques
- Authorial purpose (author’s attitude, views, purposes)
Of Mice and Men is a very short work that manages to build up an extremely powerful impact. Since the tragedy depends upon the outcome seeming to be inevitable, the reader must know from the start that Lennie is doomed, and must be sympathetic to him. Steinbeck achieves these two feats by creating a protagonist who earns the reader's sympathy because of his utter helplessness in the face of the events that unfold. Lennie is totally defenseless. He cannot avoid the dangers presented by Curley, his wife, or the world at large. His innocence raises him to a standard of pure goodness that is more poetic and literary than realistic. His enthusiasm for the vision of their future farm proves contagious as he convinces George, , , and the reader that such a paradise might be possible. But he is a character whom Steinbeck sets up for disaster, a character whose innocence only seems to ensure his inevitable destruction.
Lennie is largely responsible for George's belief in this safe haven, but eventually the predatory nature of the world asserts itself and George can no longer maintain that belief. He also puts to rest his own dream of a perfect, fraternal world. George’s fraternity. Their speech is that of uneducated labourers, but is emotionally rich and often lyrical.
Some critics of the novel consider George, and especially Lennie, somewhat flat representations of purity, goodness, and fraternal devotion, rather than convincing portraits of complex, conflicted human beings. They charge Steinbeck with being excessively sentimental in his portrayal of his protagonists, his romanticisation of male friendship, and in the deterministic plot that seems designed to destroy this friendship. Steinbeck's repeated comparisons between Lennie and animals (bears, horses, terriers) reinforce the impending sense of doom. When Lennie momentarily forgets George's instructions and speaks, Lennie lacks the faculties to take care of himself.
George berates Lennie for having spoken up. George insists that Lennie is "dumb as hell," but is neither crazy nor mean. Slim appreciates George's friendship with Lennie, saying that it is a welcome change in a world where no one ever "seems to give a damn about nobody." He asks if the place really exists. George is guarded at first, but soon says that it does and that the owners are desperate to sell it. He innocently reports that everyone else has gone into town and that he saw Crooks's light on and thought he could come in and keep him company.
Finally, despite himself, Crooks yields to Lennie's "disarming smile" and invites him in. Lennie might be a bit too innocent and Curley a bit too antagonistic for the reader to believe in them as real, complex human beings. He tries to bury Curley's wife in the hay, worrying chiefly that George will be angry with him. The scene in the barn begins ominously, with Lennie holding his puppy, now dead, and stroking it in the same way he stroked the dead mouse at the beginning of the novel. All sense of optimism for the farm or the freedom the men would have on it dissolves now that Lennie's unwittingly dangerous nature has reasserted itself. When Curley's wife appears and insists on talking with Lennie, the reader senses that something tragic is about to ensue. Curley's wife seems to sense, like Crooks (who notes earlier that Lennie is a good man to talk to), that because Lennie does not understand things, a person can say almost anything to him.
Candy clings to that idealized hope, asking George if they can still buy the farm, but George's response is among the most insightful and realistic responses in the novel. There is no room for dreaming in such a difficult and inhospitable world. Once again, the scene opens on the clearing in the woods, with the riverbed and its surroundings described as beautiful and idyllic toward the end of a day. Many details are repeated from the book's opening passages, such as the quality of the sunlight, the distant mountains, and the water snakes with their heads like "periscopes."
This time, however, even the natural beauty is marred by the suffering of innocents. Steinbeck vividly describes a large heron bending to snatch an unsuspecting snake out of the water, then waiting as another swims in its direction. Death comes quickly, surely, and to the unaware. When Lennie appears, the fate that awaits him his obvious.
The final scene between George and Lennie is suffused with sadness, even though Lennie retains his blissful ignorance until the end. To reassure Lennie, George forces himself through their habitual interaction one last time. He claims that he is angry, then assures him that all is forgiven and recites the story of their farm. For George, this final description of life with Lennie, of the farm and the changes it would have brought about, is a surrender of his dreams. The vision of the farm recedes, and George realizes that all of his talk and plans have amounted to nothing. He is exactly the kind of man he tried to convince himself he was not, just one among a legion of migrant workers who will never be able to afford more than the occasional prostitute and shot of liquor. Without Lennie, George relinquishes his hope for a different life. Lennie was the only thing that distinguished his life from the lives of other men and gave him a special sense of purpose. With Lennie gone, these hopes cannot be sustained. The grim note on which the novel closes suggest that dreams have no place in a world filled with such injustice and adversity.
Carlson and Curley represent the harsh conditions of a distinctly real world, a world in which the weak will always be vanquished by the strong and in which the rare, delicate bond between friends is not appropriately mourned because it is not understood.
Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place … with us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don't have to sit in no bar room blowin' in our jack jus' because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us
Explanation for Quotation 1: Toward the end of Section 1, before and reach the ranch, they camp for the night in a beautiful clearing and George assures Lennie of their special relationship. In this passage, George explains their friendship, which forms the heart of the novel. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck idealizes male friendships, suggesting that they are the most dignified and satisfying way to overcome the loneliness that pervades the world.
As a self-declared "watchdog" of society, Steinbeck set out to expose and chronicle the circumstances that cause human suffering. Here, George relates that loneliness is responsible for much of that suffering, a theory supported by many of the secondary characters. Later in the narrative, , , and all give moving speeches about their loneliness and disappointments in life. Human beings, the novel suggests, are at their best when they have someone else to look to for guidance and protection. George reminds Lennie that they are extremely lucky to have each other since most men do not enjoy this comfort, especially men like George and Lennie, who exist on the margins of society. Their bond is made to seem especially rare and precious since the majority of world does not understand or appreciate it.
At the end, when Lennie accidentally kills Curley's wife, Candy does not register the tragedy of Lennie's impending death. Instead, he asks if he and George can still purchase the farm without Lennie. In this environment, in which human life is utterly disposable, only recognizes that the loss of such a beautiful and powerful friendship should be mourned.
"S'pose they was a carnival or a circus come to town, or a ball game, or any damn thing." Old Candy nodded in appreciation of the idea. "We'd just go to her," George said. "We wouldn't ask nobody if we could. Jus' say, 'We'll go to her,' an' we would. Jus' milk the cow and sling some grain to the chickens an' go to her."
Explanation for Quotation 2: In the middle of Section 3, George describes their vision of the farm to Candy. At first, when Candy overhears George and Lennie discussing the farm they intend to buy, George is guarded, telling the old man to mind his own business. However, as soon as Candy offers up his life savings for a down payment on the property, George's vision of the farm becomes even more real.
Described in rustic but lyrical language, the farm is the fuel that keeps the men going. Life is hard for the men on the ranch and yields few rewards, but George, Lennie, and now Candy go on because they believe that one day they will own their own place. The appeal of this dream rests in the freedom it symbolizes, its escape from the backbreaking work and spirit-breaking will of others. It provides comfort from psychological and even physical turmoil, most obviously for Lennie. For instance, after beats him, Lennie returns to the idea of tending his rabbits to soothe his pain. Under their current circumstances, the men must toil to satisfy or his son, Curley, but they dream of a time when their work will be easy and determined by themselves only. George's words describe a timeless, typically American dream of liberty, self-reliance, and the ability to pursue happiness.
A guy sets alone out here at night, maybe readin' books or thinkin' or stuff like that. Sometimes he gets thinkin', an' he got nothing to tell him what's so an' what ain't so. Maybe if he sees somethin', he don't know whether it's right or not. He can't turn to some other guy and ast him if he sees it too. He can't tell. He got nothing to measure by. I seen things out here. I wasn't drunk. I don't know if I was asleep. If some guy was with me, he could tell me I was asleep, an' then it would be all right. But I jus' don't know.
Explanation for Quotation 3 Crooks speaks these words to Lennie in Section 4, on the night that Lennie visits Crooks in his room. The old stable-hand admits to the very loneliness that George describes in the opening pages of the novel. As a black man with a physical handicap, Crooks is forced to live on the periphery of ranch life. He is not even allowed to enter the white men's bunkhouse, or join them in a game of cards. His resentment typically comes out through his bitter, caustic wit, but in this passage he displays a sad, touching vulnerability. Crooks's desire for a friend by whom to "measure" things echoes George's earlier description of the life of a migrant worker. Because these men feel such loneliness, it is not surprising that the promise of a farm of their own and a life filled with strong, brotherly bonds holds such allure.
I seen hundreds of men come by on the road an' on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an' that same damn thing in their heads … every damn one of 'em's got a little piece of land in his head. An' never a God damn one of 'em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever'body wants a little piece of lan'. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land.
Explanation for Quotation 4 In this passage from Section 4, after Lennie shares with Crooks his plan to buy a farm with George and raise rabbits, Crooks tries to deflate Lennie's hopes. He relates that "hundreds" of men have passed through the ranch, all of them with dreams similar to Lennie's. Not one of them, he emphasizes with bitterness, ever manages to make that dream come true. Crooks injects the scene with a sense of reality, reminding the reader, if not the childlike Lennie, that the dream of a farm is, after all, only a dream. This moment establishes Crooks's character, showing how a lifetime of loneliness and oppression can manifest as cruelty. It also furthers Steinbeck's disturbing observation that those who have strength and power in the world are not the only ones responsible for oppression. As Crooks shows, even those who are oppressed seek out and attack those that are even weaker than they.
A water snake glided smoothly up the pool, twisting its periscope head from side to side; and it swam the length of the pool and came to the legs of a motionless heron that stood in the shallows. A silent head and beak lanced down and plucked it out by the head, and the beak swallowed the little snake while its tail waved frantically.
Explanation for Quotation 5 The rich imagery with which Steinbeck begins Section 6, the powerful conclusion, evokes the novel's dominant themes. After killing Curley's wife, Lennie returns to the clearing that he and George designate, at the beginning of the novel, as a meeting place should they be separated or run into trouble. Here Steinbeck describes much of the natural splendor as revealed in the opening pages of the novel. The images of the valley and mountains, the climbing sun, and the shaded pool suggest a natural paradise, like the Garden of Eden. The reader's sense of return to a paradise of security and comfort is furthered by the knowledge that George and Lennie have claimed this space as a safe haven, a place to which they can return in times of trouble.
This paradise, however, is lost. The snake sliding through the water recalls the conclusion of the story of Eden, in which the forces of evil appeared as a snake and caused humanity's fall from grace. Steinbeck is a master at symbolism, and here he skillfully employs both the snake and heron to emphasize the predatory nature of the world and to foreshadow Lennie's imminent death. The snake that glides through the waters without harm at the beginning of the novel is now unsuspectingly snatched from the world of the living. Soon, Lennie's life will be taken from him, and he will be just as unsuspecting as the snake when the final blow is delivered.
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Discuss the relationship between and .
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Discuss the various visions and dreams that comfort the characters in Of Mice and Men.
- Discuss the role of foreshadowing in the novel.
The friendship that and share forms the core of the novel, and although Steinbeck idealizes and perhaps exaggerates it, he never questions its sincerity. From Lennie's perspective, George is the most important person in his life, his guardian and only friend. Every time he does anything that he knows is wrong, his first thought is of George's disapproval. He doesn't defend himself from because of George's stern instruction for him to stay out of trouble, and when he mistakenly kills his puppy and then , his only thought is how to quell George's anger. He has a childlike faith that George will always be there for him, a faith that seems justified, given their long history together.
George, on the other hand, thinks of Lennie as a constant source of frustration. He has assumed responsibility for Lennie's welfare and has, several times, been forced to run because of trouble Lennie has inadvertently caused. Life with Lennie is not easy. However, despite George's frequent bouts of anger and frustration, and his long speeches about how much easier life would be without Lennie, George is clearly devoted to his friend. He flees from town to town not to escape the trouble Lennie has caused, but to protect Lennie from its consequences. The men are uncommonly united by their shared dream of a better life on a farm where they can "live off the fatta the lan'," as Lennie puts it. George articulates this vision by repeatedly telling the "story" of the future farm to his companion. Lennie believes unquestioningly in their dream, and his faith enables the hardened, cynical George to imagine the possibility of this dream becoming reality. In fact, George's belief in it depends upon Lennie, for as soon as Lennie dies, George's hope for a brighter future disappears.
Answer for Question 2 Steinbeck's novel emphasizes the loneliness and powerlessness of its characters, who must take comfort from insubstantial dreams of a better life. The central dream, of course, is Lennie and George's plan to buy a farm. 's eagerness to join them is a testimony to the power of the Eden-like vision of owning private land. At the same time, even the minor characters cling to their own personal visions of a better life. For the lonely black man, , this vision is a nostalgic remembrance of his childhood, when he lived with his brothers and father on a chicken ranch, a place where he was not the only black man. For Curley's wife, the dream centers around Hollywood, and her insistence that she came close to being plucked from obscurity by a talent scout and carried off to be a movie star. Even Curley, the most unappealing and unsympathetic character in the novel, harbors a strong desire for the respect of the other men. is the only character who does not seem to need an illusion to buffer himself from the harsh realities of the world. His skill at his work and mastery of the ranch bring him peace and contentment, emotions alien to his fellow ranch-hands.
Answer for Question 3 Of Mice and Men is an extremely structured work in which each detail anticipates a plot development that follows. Almost every scene points toward the inevitable tragic ending. In the first scene, we learn that Lennie likes to stroke mice and other soft creatures, but has a tendency to kill them accidentally. This foreshadows the death of his puppy and the death of Curley's wife. Furthermore, when George recounts that Lennie once grabbed a woman's dress and would not let go, the reader anticipates that similar trouble will arise at the ranch, especially once Curley's flirtatious wife appears on the scene. Finally, Lennie's panicked but brutal squeezing of Curley's hand anticipates the force with which he grab Curley's wife by the throat, unintentionally breaking her neck.
The events surrounding Candy's dog, meanwhile, parallel Lennie's fate. Candy is devoted to the animal, just as George is devoted to Lennie, yet the old man must live through the death of his companion, who is shot in the back of the head, just as Lennie is killed at the end of the book. When Candy voices regret that he should have shot his own dog rather than allow to do it, his words clearly foreshadow the difficult decision that George makes to shoot Lennie rather than leave the deed to Curley's lynch mob. The comparison between the two "gentle animals" is obvious; both are victims of a plot carefully designed for tragedy.
