Lennie doesn’t understand things, a person can say almost anything to him. Unfortunately Curley’s wife fails to see the danger in Lennie, and her attempt to console him for the loss of his puppy by letting him stroke her hair leads to her tragic death. After she lies lifeless on the hay, Steinbeck writes that all the marks of an unhappy life have disappeared from her face, leaving her looking “pretty and simple sweet and young.” The novel has spent considerable time maligning women, and much has been made of their troublesome and seductive natures. It is disturbing, then, that Steinbeck seems to subtly imply that the only way for a woman to overcome that nature and restore her lost innocence is through death.
Uses of contrast are also an important way Steinbeck uses to builds up dramatic tension.
The novel compares the outside with the barn, outside is “clang of horseshoes on the playing peg and the shouts of men playing, encouraging, and jeering.” But inside, “it was quite and humming and lazy and warm.” Steinbeck uses sounds such as clang, huzz to build up lazy. Steinbeck also uses other animals such as horse “nibble the remaining wisps of hay” to show calmness. And the time when the event happens is a Sunday afternoon which is the rest of the day to show the laziness. Then Steinbeck changes this calm into tension very quickly, “Lennie sat in the hay and looked at the little dead puppy.” It makes the theme of dramatic tension more tension.
Steinbeck uses the dead puppy to imply readers the death of Curley’s wife. The scene in the barn begins ominously, with Lennie holding his dead puppy, and stroking it in the same way he stroked the dead mouse at the beginning of the novel. All sense of optimism for the farm or the freedom the men would have on it dissolves now that Lennie’s unwittingly dangerous nature has reasserted itself. When Curley’s wife appears and insists on talking with Lennie, the reader senses that something tragic is about to ensue。
Step by step is also an important way Steinbeck uses to builds up dramatic tension.
Calmness is the first step Steinbeck use to builds up dramatic tension.
Then we step to Lennie starts panicking the dead puppy. “Why do you got to get killed, you ain’t so little as mice.” And Lennie makes up excuses angel such as” I’ll tell George I found it dead.”
Next, Curley’s wife goes into the barn, and when Lennie starts talk to Curley’s wife, she invites Lennie to stroke her hair. As the novel says:” she took Lennie’s hand and put it on her head, and she said:’ fell right aroun’ there an’ see how soft it is.” Lennie loves to touch soft things; Lennie is a big baby as babies love to have soft things as well. This already implies us that Lennie will end up with something bad.
Lennie can’t judge his force, so this makes him stroke Curley’s wife’s hair harder and harder, as Curley’s wife says, “look out, now, you’ll muss it”, “you stop it now”, “let go, u let go”. Then Lennie be scared like when he fights Curley, finally Lennie gets angry and Curley’s wife ends up dead.