Slim is angry, which surprises the reader. He says “I’m gettin’ God damn sick of it”. His use of offensive language suggests that he is extremely upset about something. This creates tension as the reader wonders what has disturbed him so much. Also, the reader gets the idea that Curley has already asked him the question, because Slim says: “you been askin’ me too often”. From this, we understand that Slim is even more upset. Except tension, this also creates curiosity, because the reader wants to read on and find out what is the question.
The reader later understands that the topic of their conversation is Curley’s wife. Carlson is added to the conversation, without anyone talking to him and Curley “whirled on Carlson”. He gets annoyed that he just got in the conversation and talks about his wife. He says: “You keep outta this les’ you wanta step outside”. This suggests that a fight might start between Curley and Carlson, and the tension level is increased. Carlson replies with a simile: “you’re yella as a frog belly. …you come for me, an’ I’ll kick your God damn head off”. This definitely increases the tension. But, instead of a fight, the pace slows down because “Candy joined the attack with joy”.
But Curley didn’t reply to Candy, and his eyes “slipped on past and lighted on Lennie”. The word “lighted” suggest that Curley just thought of an evil plan. The reader later can see that Curley “stepped over to Lennie like a terrier”. This is also a simile describing Curley. A terrier is a small dog, and this shows that Curley is small in comparison to Lennie, but he still picks him for a fight, as we can see when he says to him: “Come on, ya big bastard. Get up on your feet, No big son-of-a-bitch is gonna laugh at me. I’ll show ya who’s yella”. Eventually, the fight the reader has been waiting for starts. Here, we come back again to the simile with the terrier. Lennie loves petting animals, but he ends up hurting them. So, this suggests that Curley might get hurt now.
The fight starts. We can see onomatopoeia when Curley’s moves are described. “He slashed at Lennie with his left, and then smashed down his nose with a right”. The tension grows, because we can see a small guy, like Curley, beating a huge guy, like Lennie, but we know for sure that Lennie can easily win at this fight. The whole fight creates suspense, as we can see Lennie giving “a cry of terror” and “blood” welling from his nose”. We can understand that Lennie is “too frightened to defend himself” and he seeks help from George and the others.
George was yelling at him to get him. Slim became very angry. He says: “I’ll get ’um myself”. The reader now is wondering if Slim will go and help him and the fight will get bigger, but this question is answered later, when George doesn’t let Slim to go. Eventually, Lennie got Curley’s fist and the next minute “Curley was flopping like a fish on a line”. The alliteration in this sentence highlights the fact that now Curley couldn’t do anything. This is the climax point of the tension in this scene.
As soon as Lennie grabbed Curley’s fist, George started shouting him: “Leggo of him, Lennie. Let go”. At this point, Lennie is confused, because at first George told him to get him and know he tells him to let him go. He doesn’t know what to do, so he just “watched in terror the flopping little man whom he held”. George slapped him in the face so that he would let Lennie. I believe the reader here feels sorry for Lennie, because he didn’t want any trouble. “Curley was white and shrunken by now”. The reader is wondering whether Lennie will let go of Curley soon, or will he hurt him a lot more.
The tension levels start decreasing now. Once Lennie let goes of Curley’s fist, Slim suggests that they should take him to the doctor. The reader wonders if Curley’s hand will get well. The scene ends when Lennie says: “I didn’t wanta hurt him”. This shows that he didn’t mean to hurt Curley, he was just doing what he was told.
This scene leaves the reader with a lot of question. For example: Will Lennie and George get fired? Will this fight lead to another fight? This scene is an important scene. What are the consequences of this scene? Maybe someone else will get hurt next. It’s the first real fight between Lennie and someone else. This scene might be an explanation to other scenes further on in our story. The reader at this point wants to read on. He/She might be feeling pity for either Lennie or even Curley. The tension in the scene is built up interestingly by the writer.
