Of Mice and Men Critical Evaluation

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Critical Evaluation

Of Mice and Men

Question: Write a critical evaluation of the novel “Of Mice and Men” in which you consider the setting, the plot and the author’s style as well as what you think the author was trying to get you to think about through the medium of the story.

        

The novel, “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck is one which I have read recently.  The book is set in the outskirts of Soledad, California, America round about the 1930s.  The two main characters of the novel are George Milton and Lennie Small.  George is a small, quick thinking man and is the total opposite of Lennie whom is big built, and rather unintelligent and ‘simple minded’.  When reading the book it appears as though he could possibly have a mental disability.  In that particular time of the centuary is was rather peculiar for two men to be travelling around together.  The two men migrate from a town called Weed, the reason for this being that Lennie touched a little girls’ dress as he liked to touch soft materials, this material being the little girls’ dress.  Although the young girl claimed that Lennie had raped her and so George and Lennie fled the town.  They worked as labourers and so migrated to a ranch near Soledad.

        At the ranch we are introduced to some other characters.  One being Slim, a man who works at the ranch he appears a well respected man and is sort of looked to as the sort of leader of the group.  Curley is the bosses’ son and enjoys picking fights with other men present at ranch and is rather disliked by most.  Carlson is another man whom works at the ranch who becomes quite friendly with George and Lennie.  Curleys wife is referred to as a tart on the ranch, she in known to have given some men the ‘eye’ without Curleys knowledge.  Later in the novel Curleys wife is killed by Lennie due to her own careless actions when she flirts with him and torments him.  She tells him to touch her hair as he likes to touch soft things.  When she tells him to stop ‘mussing’ it up and he does not stop she reacts in a way that Lennie is startled and when she begins to scream he begins to panic and become scared and so he puts his hand round her mouth and lifts her up by the neck and shakes her.  We are then told that ‘she flops like a fish’ and when Lennie drops her she land on a pile of hay and it is then we find out she is infact dead.  In consequence to this incident Curley and some of the other men attempt to track Lennie down but George tells them that Lennie has gone South of Soledad but in actual fact he has given them the wrong directions because it is only George that knows where Lennie has really gone.  When George finally reaches Lennie he decides that it would be better if he ended Lennies life for him rather than have Lennie being tortured and having to experience pain by the other men when they eventually hunted him down.

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        In the novel there are lots of features which run through out the book.  The features of the book which will be mainly focused on are the plot, the setting and the author’s style.

        The first feature which I will concentrate on is the plot.  Lennie who is more like a young boy rather than a responsible adult, he likes to pet soft things for example when Slim gives him a puppy because his bitch has a litter of pups he pets it so much that he ends up killing it.  An example of the plot is when Lennie is ...

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