Of Mice and Men. The section between George followed to the door and shut the door until George shuffled the cards noisily and dealt them is a particularly tensed scene because the reader and the characters are waiting for a specific event

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Melissa Iacovidou  3 Red                

  1. Re-read p. 49 from “George followed to the door and shut the door...” until “George shuffled the cards noisily and dealt them.” on p. 50. How does Steinbeck create tension in this extract? Remember to use Point-Evidence-Explanation (referring to language techniques and effects), giving the reader’s personal response.

The section between “George followed to the door and shut the door…” until “George shuffled the cards noisily and dealt them” is a particularly tensed scene because the reader and the characters are waiting for a specific event to happen. Carlson has taken Candy’s dog to shoot him. In the scene, everyone is waiting for the shot, which is the climax point of the tension, and the waiting makes the tension worse.

The scene comes after we have viewed the argument of the men about Candy’s dog. Candy doesn’t want to kill his dog, so Carlson takes the dog outside to put it out of its misery. The reader might think that the men are being selfish, because they aren’t thinking about Candy who loves his dog, but about themselves. “Candy looked a long time at Slim to try to find some reversal. And Slim gave him none.” We can see that even Slim, who isn’t selfish, doesn’t try to stop Carlson.

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The scene starts with George closing the door and setting “the latch gently in its place”. The word “gently” suggests that he doesn’t want to draw any attention on him, so he tries not to make any noise. The fact that he shuts the door suggests that he doesn’t want Candy to hear the shot. “Candy lay rigidly on his bed staring at the ceiling.” His position shows how anxious he feels.

Slim tries to start a conversation, but instead of an answer, “silence came into the room.” The word “silence” is repeated many times in this section, and it ...

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