By introducing the story of Lennie and George’s dream at the beginning of the book John Steinbeck sets the scene and introduces the feeling of loneliness. But he also shows how Lennie and George are different, they “don’t have to sit in no bar room blowing our jack.” Strange as their relationship is, they have each other and so they don’t seem lonely. You can tell how different and strange George and Lennie’s relationship is because Steinbeck uses the other characters to express surprise and suspicion at it. For example the boss says “Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is" this shows how rare it is that two migrant workers go round together and emphasizes how lonely the other workers are.
John Steinbeck tells the story as an external third person narrator which means that we can’t see inside the character’s heads so we have to guess at what there thinking from their what they do. So our opinion of George and Lennie’s Relationship is based on their speech and actions, for example at the beginning of the book “Lennie who had been watching, imitated George exactly” showing he idolises George to the point that he copies him, George is Lennie’s model for how to behave. Steinbeck introduces how striking their relationship is when George says to Lennie “You gonna give me that mouse or do I have to sock you?” George is a small man and Lennie is a huge bear like creature who can crush a man’s hand in his fist, this situation is almost funny because the image of George socking Lennie is so ridiculous but Lennie doesn’t retaliate he gets upset. This really shows how vulnerable he is. George is more like a reluctant father then a friend to him.
George talks down to Lennie, scolds him when he forgets things, tells him off for petting mice like he would a young child, and complains about having to look after him. But he protects him from the law in Weed and again from Curley and his mob at the end of the book. He feeds and gets work for Lennie and they have a bond which appears deeper then normal friendship. George relies on Lennie for company, it doesn’t matter if Lennie doesn’t understand him just like it didn’t matter to Curley’s wife that Lennie didn’t understand her when she was telling him about her dream. Like Lennie says when George is talking about “men like us”, “With us it ain’t like that,” “Because I got you to look after me and you got me to look after you and that’s why.” They are different because they have each other and need each other. Lennie’s need is obvious; he needs protecting from a place that is too hard to tolerate any kind of weakness, he needs looking after and for the world to be simplified so he can understand it and George gives him these things. Sadly the one thing that George can’t protect Lennie from is his own strength. But George also needs Lennie, he relies on him to be someone who needs protecting. In this mentor role he is secure, unlike the other guys who have very little security in their lives. This and Lennie’s company mean he’s not driven to forgetting his problems by “taking his fifty bucks and staying all night in some lousy cat house” which is the life he predicts for himself without Lennie. The fact that George puts up with this “crazy son of a bitch” who loses both of them their jobs and “does bad things” which keeps him running around the country shows that even though he is wistful about what his life might be like, he needs Lennie. I think George loves him, not as an equal but as he would love an animal or maybe even a child and Lennie loves George completely, he is tirelessly devoted to him. The uniqueness of their friendship captures and interests the reader and makes the loneliness seem worse at the end of the book without Lennie.
Most of the people that live and work on the ranch have been crippled by the harsh lonely environment that they live in. I think that Steinbeck uses physical crippling to symbolise how the people have big emotional problems most of them to do with loneliness. Candy whose physical crippling is that he has no hand is terrified of what will happen to him when they “can” him because he’s too old and useless, he’s got no one now that his dog was shot because it “ain’t no good to anyone.” Physically Crooks’ back is twisted after a kick from a horse and he’s bitter and angry at his lonely, helpless status as a black outcast. Curley gets his hand crushed by Lennie but mentally he is very insecure of his size, over-protective about his wife and very mean and eager to pick fights; this cuts him off from every one and I think he’s lonely too. Curley’s wife is full of bitterness and self-pity because of her unrealised dreams and the friendless, lonely situation she finds herself in; physically she is not crippled, but killed by Lennie. I think that by crippling his characters physically Steinbeck can more visually show how harsh the lifestyle is. He also conveys the loneliness of the ranch through direct speech, for example when George says
“I’ve seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain't no good. They don't have no fun. After a long time they get mean.”
George, Curley’s wife and Crooks use Lennie as someone to talk to even thought they all realize even if he is listening he doesn’t understand much. They need to be able to talk and to be in company so much it doesn’t matter if, as crooks says, it’s “just a guy talkin’ to another guy and it don’t make no difference if he don’t hear or understand.” Compared to the other ranch people George and Lennie seem happy, they have each other and they have their dream.
The title “of Mice and Men” comes from a poem “To a mouse” by Robert Burns,
“The best-laid plans o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain
For promised joy.”
It’s a poem about how people’s dreams and aspirations often don’t work out, like nature’s plans, only human plans are more complicated because things of nature live in the present where as humans can look back on the past and regret. Steinbeck has cleverly chosen the title because not only does the book include mainly men and some mice, it is about the characters’ dreams, whatever they may be, of community, company, acceptance, security, fame or like George and Lennie a bit of land to call their own. I think George and Lennie’s dream is the most vivid, it is repeated again and again, like a mantra, down to details like the skin on the milk. At the beginning George hardly believes it’s ever going to happen. However in the bunk house Candy overhears and seeing it as a way out of his loneliness, he offers all the money he’s got to join the dream. After Crooks hears about it he casually offers to work for nothing on the land. Even the same dreams mean different things to the four people, I think George sees it as a way to escape from the inevitable migrant work and independence where he doesn’t have to answer to anybody, “it’d be our own and nobody could can us”. Lennie just wants to be allowed to tend the rabbits. Candy sees it as security whereas before he had nothing to go to after he’s been canned and Crooks wants it for company, he is so lonely in his room, separated from everyone, he tells Lennie “a guy needs someone - to be near him.” He wouldn’t be on his own at the farm.
Unfortunately like the title hints at, dreams like this “Gang aft a-gley” (go often awry) and the dream falls apart after Lennie kills Curley’s wife. Steinbeck builds up the tension leading to the event and drops hints to reader of what might happen. We learn that Lennie loves to pet nice things but he pets them too hard; That he has no control over his own strength, that he panics in Weed, grabs this girls dress and “gets so scairt, he holds on cause that’s the only thing he can think to do.” He kills mice that he’s been given to pet and the pup that Slim gave him and all these things lead up to the one thing that George cant get him out of, when he kills Curley’s wife and their dream of having that bit of “lan'’” is destroyed. So George has to kill Lennie and sink into the loneliness that the other guys on the ranch seem to live in. There are parallels between George and Lennie and Candy and his dog. Candy and George both look after Lennie and the dog even though they’re no good to themselves. I think part of the reason is selfishly so they’re not alone. George says “you get used to going round with a guy” about Lennie and Candy says he’s “so used to him” when he’s defending his dog. But Lennie and Candy’s dog both get shot “right back of the head, he wouldn’t feel nothing” both mercy killings. Candy’s dog was killed to stop him living in pain and Lennie was killed by George to save him from the lynch mob. Both George and Candy were left in lonely.
Lennie’s death really affects the audience because he is so innocent, he never means anyone any harm, and he’s so distraught at what he’s done. George tells him their dream even though he knows it’s over “Guys like us are the loneliest guys in the world…..” and then he shoots him “right back of head” George now has no one and is left to lead the life he was trying to escape from with no hope of anything better.
Working on the plains in the 1930s was a very lonely place be and through “Of Mice and Men” Steinbeck pours into the reader the atmosphere and life of the place showing them how it was. Loneliness is a basic human emotion which I think everyone feels at some point in their lives and so people now as well as when Steinbeck first published the book in the 1930s can relate to the characters. I think the book is a tragedy because Lennie was kind of doomed from the start by his huge strength and weak mind to do “bad things.” The book has a structure of patterns and parallels that suggest that events are going to happen before they do, building the tension and keeping the reader gripped. When George kills Lennie the happiness and the hope in the book breaks down but before that, for a little while George, Lennie and Candy can really believe that they might do it, and live their dream. Lennie dies happy because he believes they are going to get the place with the rabbits right then. So even though they never accomplished their dreams they were worth having.
