In chapter one of Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck creates contrasting characters of George and Lennie

George and Lennie are camping by the river on the night before they are set to start work at the ranch. The extract starts when George begins to tell Lennie his favourite tale, about the land that they will one day own together. We know it is very familiar to Lennie because of the way ‘George spoke rhythmically,’ as if he is repeating something he’s memorised, like a song. It comforts Lennie to hear the words again. George sometimes does things to try and relate to Lennie and please him as he knows that he is not with it mentally; this shows he is affectionate towards him and cares for the best of him.

George mentions that guys who work on ranches are ‘the loneliest guys in the world’. Although he goes on to argue that he and Lennie have each other and so are not lonely, this quotation is interesting because it introduces the theme of loneliness. Most of the people they meet at the ranch the following day are lonely, like Crooks, the Negro stable-buck who is isolated because of his colour, Curley’s wife, who is in a loveless marriage with no friends around her, and Candy, who loses his only companion when his dog is shot. We realise how important George and Lennie’s friendship is when we compare them to the others. Crooks puts it simply: “It’s just being with another gut. That’s all.” George and Lennie ‘look after’ each other, which makes them special.

George goes on to tell Lennie about the house and land and livestock they will have one day. Lennie makes it sound like paradise, with thick cream on the milk ‘like you can hardly cut it.’ It is their ideal, their dream. Most of the true characters in the novel have dreams: dreams are what help them through times of loneliness. Later on, George and Lennie get tantalisingly close to realising their dream, when Candy puts in enough money to buy a place that George has found so that they could all ‘live off the fatta the lan’. George talks to Lennie about their dream just before he kills him, so that Lennie dies happy.

Lennie’s favourite part of the dream is the fact that he will be allowed to ‘tend the rabbits’. Later on with Candy, he talks about this ‘eagerly’. We saw earlier in chapter one how Lennie like to pet soft things, when he had a dead mouse in his pocket. His enthusiasm for the rabbits reinforces this. It is crucial to the story, as Lennie’s weakness for soft things is what leads to the tragic death of Curley’s wife when he feels her ‘soft and fine’ hair – and so his own death.

George reminds Lennie about how he’s not ‘gonna say a word’ when they meet their new boss the following day. He also tells Lennie that if anything happens to him, he must hide in the brush. Both these points emphasise how good George is at caring for Lennie: he knows how to deal with Lennie’s poor memory and he tries to think of potential problems so that he can find a way around them. Yet they also foreshadow that something might happen that will make Lennie need to take George’s advice. We found out earlier in chapter one that the pair had to escape Weed because of the repercussions when Lennie “Jus’ wanted to feel that girls’ dress” and so we’re prepared for something similar to happen. This adds a lot of tension to the story and the suspense it creates makes a good ending to the chapter.

Chapter one concludes with a description of the sunset. “As the sun blaze dropped from the fire the sphere of light grew smaller.” This is symbolic, as – unknowingly – George and Lennie are reaching the ‘sunset’ of their relationship. In just a few days time, Lennie will be killed in this spot. However, despite the approaching night, there is still life in the brush – they hear a coyote ‘yammer’, a dog answer and the sycamore leaves ‘whispering’. All this suggest that life does go on, in spite of everything, so perhaps the end of the novel should not be seen as altogether tragic.