"Of Mice and Men" - review

“Of Mice and Men”

Prose Study Coursework Essay

The story of “Of Mice and Men” is a novel written by John Steinbeck. It’s a novel that is set in America in California near the town of Soledad. It is set in the 1930s. This was a time of economic depression, which happened when the New York Wall Street Stock market collapsed. Everything just plundered into the ground. America was losing money and businesses were failing. There was a lot of harsh poverty and there was a lot of unemployment so people were looking for jobs wherever they could. Farm workers came from all over America in search of jobs in California. Some because their crops failed and needed work. This made hoards of migrant workers.

“Of Mice and Men” is about two migrant workers who are travelling together and usually two migrant workers travelling together was rare to see. They were travelling form ranch to ranch in search of a job and money. They find themselves in a place just south of Soledad. This is where a man called George Milton and Lennie Small find work on a ranch. They have come from a place called Weed where Lennie had got into trouble with a girl and George his best friend helped Lennie escape from the people out to kill him. Then they made it to the new ranch and they hadn’t been working there long until Lennie got into trouble again but this time he killed a girl. At the end of the novel George and Lennie have met up after Lennie ran away because he killed someone. They are left with George decision, which would change his life forever. He shoots Lennie in the back of the head because there was no way they could get out of it this time. “George raised the gun and his hand shook” this shows the imagery of there friendship and how hard it is to shoot his best friend. This very emotional part of the book where George doesn’t know whether or not he made the right decision to lose his best friend to a bullet because of their close friendship.

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The feelings that you get from George’s decision to shoot Lennie are very clear. He finds it hard to kill Lennie because of their long friendship together and this shows how hard it was to lose Lennie. “He looked steadily at his right hand that had held the gun” this showing how hurt he was after shooting him in the back of the head. George knew that he would always be running away from a problem that they would face. Although this problem was too big to run from, this was the end of the line for Lennie. He had to face up to facts and do what needed to be done. George knew that if he didn’t kill him Curly would. Although he knew that Curly would make Lennie’s life heel, When Slim is talking to George he says, “ Curley’s gonna want to shoot ‘im” this shows that if George didn’t kill him someone else would. Although I feel that George has the right to kill him because they have been so close and no one else should kill him. Also I feel that George knew that if he didn’t kill Lennie he wouldn’t be a danger to anyone else. If Curley didn’t do anything to Lennie he knew that they would take him away to mental hospital. This way would be best way to stop Curley from hurting him. Lennie is so mad that he doesn’t know what he is doing half the time. “He’s nuts, Slim” this is showing George is worried about what might happen if he went to a mental hospital. It also shows that George realizes that Lennie is mad and understands that he didn’t mean to know what he was doing. I feel that if he killed Lennie it would be the nicest way to kill him. I think that the death of Candy’s dog is echoed in the bock because when Candy says, “that he should have killed his dog himself” this shows how if George killed Lennie and how it would have hurt George more if he didn’t kill Lennie and it shows how bad Candy felt when he lost his companion and best friend.

Steinbeck prepares us for the ending by mirroring the part where George tells Lennie that if he got in trouble and which he did. I think that this almost implying that he will get in trouble and they must meet up at the pool. Another way is by showing us the way that Lennie likes to pet things but kills them because he pets them to hard. The way Steinbeck does this is that he shows Lennie all dumb and doesn’t know what’s happening, but underneath he is very strong person. He shows that he pets and then kills mice. Then he pets and kills his puppy because he strokes it to hard. This is mirrored later on in the book by the ways he kills Curley’s wife and the way he panics and gets worked up. I think that he kills things but in the book as it goes on the things that kills get bigger from mice to a puppy then the death of Curley’s wife. Death is signposted by the death of nature. Steinbeck shows this by using the heron and the water snake by in the first chapter the water snake gets away. Although in Chapter six the water snake gets caught and this shows the way that a bit later Lennie gets killed. Another way the writer prepares us for the ending by showing the dream wouldn’t come true. Slim says that “no workers get on and don’t usually get on”, this is showing that migrant workers don’t usually travel around together. Although this also a signpost to what will happen to George and Lennie’s friendship. When they talk about the dream it says “I got to look after me, and you got me to look after you” this is showing how different there special friendship is. The way Lennie behaves at the pool, he acts like a dog and this is mirrored by the way the death of Candy’s dog and that tells the future of Lennie. This shows how the way Lennie acts like Candy’s dog and the way Candy felt because he lost his best friend and this is mirrored by the way George acts after he loses his best friend.

Steinbeck chooses to end the book in this way it did because George had to do something to sort the problem out. By killing Lennie off this shows that what Slim said came true “workers like us don’t usually go round together” this shows what Slim says come true and that George will be going round on his own now. George killed Lennie in an act of kindness because Lennie keeps getting into trouble and he is dragging George down with him and George shot him so he didn’t have get into any more trouble. There is so much death in the book that someone had to die. It is the death of George in a way because he lost his friendship and how he’s an ordinary migrant worker now. Lennie deserved to die because he took a life and George realised it was the best way Lennie wouldn’t of been allowed to get away with it. George in a sense was always going on about how “if weren’t around my life would be so much easier” this is a kind of act because us the reader really know that George would never be the same without Lennie. Although this is a signpost to Lennie’s future when finally he is without Lennie and we see that his life is not easier.

I think the ending suggests that the friendship between George and Lennie was not pointless. I think that George got a lot of his friendship he got a sense of companionship. This is showed by him feeling bad and having so much courage to kill his best friend. George and Lennie’s friendship gave them a hope for there future. As soon as Lennie killed Curley’s wife all there hopes and dreams were shattered and George learnt the hard way what had to be done to Lennie. This is not pointless because George leant a lot from their friendship, a companion to talk to about anything a dream that could of come true and this taught a great lesson to George.