The description of Candy and his dog also adds to an atmosphere. They are both old, which is the opposite of a contrast (a similarity), and they are both nearly worthless. By likening the dog to Candy, and Candy to the dog, we learn more about both of them, and the atmosphere which is created leads to one of the important themes of the book, the American Dream. The atmosphere itself helps us understand more about the life of an itinerant worker, where there is tension between workers "watched him uneasily", and where it is a very cruel world, "I ain't much good".
The verb as a descriptor is also very important in Steinbeck's creation of atmosphere. As previously mentioned, animal, light and sound imagery can be used very effectively to portray a certain atmosphere, but there are also other words Steinbeck uses to help him in this creation. "Fumed" can show anger in a character, making an atmosphere totally different to, say, "sighed" which can be used to mean that there is either an air of contentment about, or an air of boredom about a certain character or situation.
Taking a situation in the book such as the description of the bunk-house at the beginning of chapter two, we can see all the techniques used by Steinbeck to create atmosphere. The light images of sunlight, “bright dust-laden bar" help to put a spotlight, so to speak, on where the action will happen, and what is being described. The stark and bland words such as "unpainted" help to create a physical atmosphere, telling the reader what the bunk-house actually looks like. References to sound, “Flies shot in” not only build up the idea of movement in the scene, but also add a living quality to an inanimate scene, giving it noise.
Adding verbs makes the atmosphere even more realistic. "Nailed" implies more primitiveness, and "littered" implies that the bunk-house, despite its basic, is 'lived in' and there is a degree of humanness about the place. Finally, adding characters, Steinbeck finishes off the creation of an atmosphere perfectly. "Stoop-shouldered" is in keeping with the shabby and old bunk-house, so the reader has an image of tired, hard-working people. The unnatural, pausing speech between George and Candy shows the caution with which itinerant workers treat their colleagues, and so the reader can complete the atmosphere in the bunk-house by concluding that even though the workers must live together in this shabby place, they do not usually have the chance to bond, which the reader later realises to be the main difference in the remainder of the story.
In conclusion, Steinbeck has an amazing ability to create atmosphere. Using the imagery of light and sound, he can set a scene, then giving it life and relevance to the reader with animal imagery, before adding realism with descriptive verbs. Finally, he finishes the atmosphere by adding the right kinds of people in the right places, who display characteristics in keeping with the rest of the scene. From this, with the reader's attention and understanding, Steinbeck can develop a detailed and interesting plot with the capacity to hold the reader for as long as he wants to do so.
George is not a strong man physically, but what he is lacking physically he makes up for in his mentality. Although his abundance of mental strength does not become apparent until later in the story, it is fairly obvious from the beginning that his physical strength is lacking. Lennie, on the other hand, is physically "strong as a bull", according to George, but mentally is a weak as George is physically. Together, as they travel from place to place looking for their chance at making their dream a reality, they use each other's strong points to help them complete the task. Without one another the two characters would have absolutely no chance at success, for what one is lacking the other has an ample amount of. George and Lennie are the perfect example of how opposites attract.
The two of them have spent the majority of their adult lives together and know each other better than they know anybody else in the entire world. They share their hard times and the good, their victories and their defeats, but most importantly they share a common dream. That dream is of having "a little house and a couple of acres an' a cow and some pigs an' live off the fatta the lan'"(14), where Lennie can take care of the rabbits just as George has been taking care of him over the years. This is Lennie's chance to pay George back for all of the kindness that he has had bestowed upon him out of his true love and loyalty towards George.
George Milton has an astute mind, with sharp eyes and a quick tongue. In the novel, he is described as 'small', 'strong' and 'slender'. He is very intelligent and quick to react.
George almost treats Lennie like his son. He has an uncommon bond with Lennie, which I don't think anybody can break. The way he is like a parent to Lennie, is the way that he looks after him. He knows that if he left Lennie, Lennie would be in all sorts of trouble.
But that doesn't mean that George doesn't think about what life would be like without Lennie. I think he secretly fantasises about what his life would be like, without Lennie pulling him down. However, he also knows that he wouldn't be able to leave Lennie, because Lennie is weak and vulnerable.
I think that if George didn't have Lennie, he would be much more carefree. He says to Lennie
'If I was alone I could live so easy. (I could) go into town and get whatever I want. An' whatta I got? I got you.'
George says this when he is really angry and not just at Lennie. He is angry at the way his life is turning out. You can tell he wants to make more of his life. He is upset because he feels restricted by Lennie, but I think that even if he didn't have the restrictions, he wouldn't do anything different.
George has Lennie and Lennie has George, but I think George feels that he needs somebody else, someone he can sit down with and have a serious conversation and that's what Lennie can not give him. And if Lennie were to try to pay George back for his help, George wouldn't want money, but conversation. Because whatever Lennie is told, it goes in one ear and out the other.
George likes to play solitaire, they live in Soledad and both these words mean isolation. Here, I think Steinbeck is trying to show George's loneliness.
There is nothing obvious about what George gets out of this relationship, but I think it might be the pleasure of having a hold over Lennie.
Lennie Small is most certainly not small! In the novel, he is described as 'a huge man, shapeless of face, large pale eyes and sloping shoulders.' So from this description you can tell that he is George's opposite.
In the novel, Steinbeck compares Lennie to animals, which I find very interesting. The first comparison is about the way Lennie walks.
'The way a bear drags his paws.’ The next comparison is about the way he drinks.’ Snorting into the water like a horse.’ Then towards the end there is the similarity between Candy's dog's death and Lennie's death.
Although Lennie is described as 'an affectionate giant with the mind of a child', he is still intelligent, but forgetful. He knows that George cares for him deeply and would never leave him. He uses this affinity to his advantage. When George starts to get mad at him, he answers,
'George, you want I should go away and leave you alone? If you don' want me I can go off in the hills an' find a cave. I can go away anytime.'
Lennie knows that George will not let him go, so he gets around George by making him feel guilty.
Even though Lennie is quite intelligent, he is very childlike. As a child is often described as 'innocent', Lennie is also innocent, but in a different way to a child. He isn't sheltered from th e cruelties of the world and people don't treat him like a child; he is just unable to understand certain things. Like why Curley picks on him.
Because Lennie is 'innocent', he accidentally does bad things. One incident that the reader is told about, is about what happened in Weed. Lennie saw a girl wearing a red dress and went to touch it. Of course, the girl got scared, so she screamed. Then Lennie panicked and got tight hold of the dress. When he finally let go, the girl was so terrified, that she said she had been raped. This was the reason why George and Lennie had to get away from Weed.
I think Lennie treats George like a father, an older brother and a friend, all in one, because George always seems to be there for him. In a way, Lennie idolises George and you can see that from the way Lennie used to listen and hang on to every word George said. Even though he forgot what was said to him most of the time, I think, whatever George said to him was in his mind somewhere.
If Lennie didn't have George, I think he would be dead by now. This is because Lennie does such stupid things, then panics. This almost always results in adversity. Some situations would be so bad, that people would want to kill Lennie and no body would stop him from dying. And because Lennie is so dumb, he wouldn't be able to run and hide, and people wouldn't be sympathetic, they'd just see him as a dangerous person.
Lennie gets companionship and a carer, out of this relationship and these are the things he needs the most. Someone to keep him on the straight and narrow path.
Obviously, the two must have a very strong relationship, in order to travel together. Yet, I think the novel suggests that they don't know much about each other. I'm sure that sometimes George will say something that makes Lennie think "He hasn't said anything like that before" and vice versa. Although they travel around and look after each other, I don't think they are very intimate with each other. I think that, even though Lennie is naive, he still knows how to keep things to himself. Whereas George would like someone to confide in. I don't think Lennie feels the need for this comfort.
George sits down to have discussions with Slim, the jerk line skinner on the ranch, who he really seems to trust. Yet, other people seem to confide in Lennie; because they know what they are telling him will not ever be repeated. However, I think Lennie understands more than he lets on, but he just doesn't want to confront the person, talk about the problem and take on some responsibility. He doesn't know how.
George and Lennie contradict the typical stereotype of ranch workers being lonely and friendless, by travelling together and just by being friends. Nevertheless, George plays solitaire. Steinbeck is trying to show that, even though George has Lennie's constant companionship, he is still lonely, which is why he plays solitaire. Solitaire is card game that you can play by yourself.
Because Lennie is 'innocent', he accidentally does bad things. One incident that the reader is told about, is about what happened in Weed. Lennie saw a girl wearing a red dress and went to touch it. Of course, the girl got scared, so she screamed. Then Lennie panicked and got tight hold of the dress. When he finally let go, the girl was so terrified, that she said she had been raped. This was the reason why George and Lennie had to get away from Weed.
Through the book, the reader is being told about the mice that Lennie killed, by petting them too hard. This is an important part of the story as it show’s the power of Lennie because even though he was trying to be gentle, he still manage to pet the mouse to hard which relates to other incidents. Then the inevitable happened and Lennie killed his puppy, accidentally. After that death, came another. Curley's wife died, killed by Lennie, this is Lennie downfall as he has a passion for petting things he like but not knowing his physical power and the damage it caused.
As it is described above, a dream is something you indulge in, to escape momentarily from life. This seems to be the context that John Steinbeck intended his characters in Of Mice and Men to dream in. They are all craving for something - in the case of George and Lennie, that something is land. They are not the first travelling ranch hands to conjure up images of their own land, or of being their own bosses. This dream is similar to the Great American Dream, that you can achieve anything if you have the mind and desire to do it. Dreams are simple things in some ways, yet amazingly complex in others.. After repeating it to Lennie as a bedtime story, maybe he eventually came to believe it himself.
George and Lennie´s dream is a simple one - they want land to call their own. The feeling is summed up well by Candy:
"Every body wants a bit of land, not much. Jus som´thin´ that was his."
Crooks has also seen it all before:
"I seen guys nearly crazy with lonelinessfor land, but ever´ time a whore-houseor a blackjack game took what it takes."
George´s dream, although extremely similar to Lennie´s, is probably more detailed and complicated. Lennie thinks as far as "tendin´ the rabbits", but George has to worry about whether it would be possible to really "live offa fatta of the lan´", or would they starve?
Lennie, with his child-like mentality, believes whatever he hears, so when George tells him that they will really get their own land, he believes with all his heart. To Lennie, the question is not if, but when:
"George, how long´s it gonna be till we get that littleplace an´ live on the fatta the lan´ - an´ rabbits?"
At the beginning of the novel, there are already some doubts as to whether the pair will achieve their dreams. We are told that the two men had to leave Weed because of some trouble that Lennie caused. This seems to forebode that they might fail to realize their dreams because of Lennie´s fondness for petting things. And this is exactly what happens. Lennie, although killed by George, really died when Curley´s wife set her sights on the big man. When George meets up with Lennie after the accident, he knows the dream is over for him too. He also knew what he had to do as soon as he found out what Lennie had done.
Curley´s wife has a different type of dream. Instead of something to call her own, she wants fame, fortune and admiration. She tells the three "bindle stiffs" about her offers of fame. She is unhappy with her husband, and his constant stories of who he´s going beat up next:
"Sure I gotta husban´. You allseen him. Swell guy, ain´t he?"
When she is talking to Lennie, alone in the barn, she recounts her obviously well told stories of her offers of fame. She seems to have a deep regret that she didn´t take up either of the men on their offers:
"If I´d went, I wouldn´t be livin´ like this, you bet."
She also deeply believes in what she was told by the man who may have been only trying his luck with this woman, not knowing she would take his word as gospel:
"He says he was gonna put me in
the movies. Says I was a natural."
Her monologue, broken by only a few words from Lennie, tells of her need for affection, and how she needs to be wanted. Curley´s wife does not seem at all likely to achieve her dreams. Even if she wasn´t murdered, she was stuck in a rut with Curley, a rut that would she would have gone round and round in until he left her for a new woman, or she finally built up the courage to leave him. Also, someone who is referred to throughout an entire story as someone´s possession does not make a likely major character. Their marriage did not seem like one that was destined to last until they died of natural causes. But Curley´s wife did die, and her death, it seemed, was a release:"… the discontent and the ache for
attention were all gone from her face.
She was very pretty and simple, and
her face was sweet and young."
This apparent release through death seems to lay the foundations for Lennie´s violent death, and its meaning.
Curley himself has a dream that he has nearly achieved. He has a job, a house and a wife. For Curley, the old saying is true: "Two outta three ain´t bad." His wife is the only negative aspect to his dream. She is not a storybook wife, and that is what Curley wants. Although she is obviously the submissive partner in the relationship (this is apparent by the way in which she is referred to as 'Curley´s wife´), she is not submissive enough for Curley. As Candy the swamper told George and Lennie when they first met:
"Well - she got the eye."
He goes on to tell them about the way he has seen her give the other men on the ranch "the eye". He embellishes his previous statement with:"Well, I think Curley´s married … a tart."
Although Curley hasn´t seen any of this, according to Candy, he must have a feeling. He also has a dream that lots of short people have - to be bigger. He is extremely brusque with Lennie from the start, and the main reason for this is Lennie´s size. Curley seems very bitter about being short, and throughout the book seems to be trying to assert his position as the tough guy on the ranch.
Curley, like his wife and Lennie, also seems to have been released in death, although in an indirect and very morbid way. Maybe he will miss his wife, or maybe he will use their mortal separation as a new starting point, a time to find out what he really wants, and perhaps a new wife, that doesn´t have "the eye".
Whit´s dream is stirred up from his subconscious mind by a name that jumped out from the page of a magazine. His old partner on the pea fields, Bill Tenner, got his letter printed in a magazine, something Whit seems envious about. This is a great example of a small man, who thinks small, aims low and probably misses.
Candy does not seem to have a dream until he meets George and Lennie. He is swept up in the plausible reality of this dream, a dream he would probably be too scared to initiate by himself. Candy is not happy with his life on the ranch, but he doesn´t think that there is anything that he can do.
The other main character in the story, Slim, doesn´t seem to have a dream. He seems to be happy with his job, and the skill with which he has been blessed.
The opening of the novel can tell us a great deal of about the novel, the opening scene described as peaceful world of nature is disturbed by man, this becomes more pronounced during the “ sound of footsteps” grows louder and the animal flee to safety. Afterwards we learn the difference of the two men, George and Lennie, we know straight away the George has authority over Lennie straight away “they walked in single file down the path, and even in the open one stayed behind other” and George was the person in front. The book opens with an exposition or the filling in of events before the story proper opens. This puts the relationship between George and Lennie into a slightly wider context.