Of Mice And Men (English)

Of Mice and Men

A dream is something that you can hope and wish for, it could be anything, but what makes it special is that you to believe in it, even when it seems impossible to ever come true, you need to have a faith. My dream is to go to university and become a social worker. I would love to live in America or Germany. My dreams are very important to me because they are the basis for my future. If no one had dreams we would all be the same, humdrum people and no one would aspire to anything greater. George and Lennie had a dream, to have a big house in the country with rabbits, chickens, pigs and cows and to live of the fat of the land. Their dream was very important to them because they had nothing and it was their only way out to have a better life. They believed in themselves even though it seemed hopeless from the start, I never thought their dream would come true because there were familiar signs of failure, and success seemed out of their reach because they were just two ordinary men waiting for the extraordinary to happen.

The book is set in America in the 1930’s. George and Lennie are the two main characters they are completely different types of people. Lennie acts like a child and thinks like one too. He doesn’t judge people well, and would trust anyone who is kind and friendly to him. But George is smarter and does not trust anyone until he fully knows them; he’s a very serious man. There is also a difference when it comes to looks. George is “small, quick and dark of face” slender, strong and defined whilst graceful. While Lennie on the other hand was huge and had sloping shoulders “He walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws”. Lennie is often referred to as an animal, “snorting into the water like a horse”, “dabbled his big paw in the water”. He had a learning deficiency and needed looking after like a child, “Look, George. Look what I done”. George is good at looking after Lennie, he has had a lot of experience in that, but still gets annoyed, sometimes losing his temper taking it out on Lennie, “I could get along so easy and so nice if I didn’t have you on my tail”, “So you forgot already did you? I gotta tell you again, do I?” This tells me that as much as they are good friends there will always be conflict between them, Lennie will always need looking after and George will always feel hard done by.

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Another fresh start for George and Lennie who where at the Salinas River in Soledad near the Gabilan Mountains, which was a quarter of a mile away from their new ranch. They’re off to a new ranch again because they were run out of weed the last place they worked, it was Lennie’s fault as usual, he likes to feel soft things, so when he touched the girls dress she screamed, Lennie got scared held on tighter frightening the young girl even more, when finally her dress tore she escaped and ran back into town to tell the men what had happened. They set off hunting for Lennie but by then he and George were hastily making their way to the next town, and that’s why George and Lennie never stay in one place for any length of time, because of Lennie’s unpredictable behaviour, innocent and childlike mind he doesn’t know right from wrong most of the time. Lennie loves being told about their dream, he knows it word for word “An live off the fatta the lan”, but Lennie insists and George indulges him, like a child’s favourite story “Go on George. Tell about what we’re gonna have in the garden and about the rabbits in the cages”. “You got it by heart. You can do it by yourself” George only tells Lennie the story time and time again because Lennie enjoys it so much, but it doesn’t enthuse him like it once did “O.k. Someday we’re going get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres…”

The book is set in the middle of the great depression, when people believed in the American Dream. The American Dream was that if you worked hard enough you could own your own home and land. George and Lennie thought that they could do this like so many other Americans. Though it was a tough time to be thinking about buying houses and jobs were not paid well but they still believed it was possible. They thought that if they earned the money to buy their own home they would live happier with no more worries. Lots of people who tried to make something of themselves failed because they fell on hard times. They lost their homes and savings trying to succeed in the hardship. They believed in what the politians were saying because believing in false hope was better than no hope at all.

Ranch workers are all the same, they travel alone from one ranch to another, they get their money at the end of the month and go out on the town. Most have a dream about having their own land and farms but when they get paid they spend it right off, it burns a hole in their pocket. George and Lennie are different they have each other and they are saving for their house and have a plan “We ain’t like that. We got a future”. They don’t want to be ranch workers all their lives, when they get their own land, they’ll quit the ranch and pan gold up north, maybe even hit a pocket. George and Lennie would be their own bosses if they don’t want to work, they won’t “We’ll just say the hell with goin’ to work, and we’ll build up a fire in the stove, and set around it and listen to the rain…” They love the idea of them having a nice home, being able to live how they please, if they want to do something or go somewhere, they can “We’d just go to her” and to be happy “They all sat still, all bemused with the beauty of the thing, each mind was popped into the future when this lovely thing could come about”. They longed for a normal life with things others took for granted, like being a part of something better than a ranch “ We’d belong there” They would like a blissful and luxurious life with everything their hearts desire. George and Lennie loved their childhood, they were young and enjoyed family life, but now they are on their own, they want to go to back to those happier times. Their ideas and plans are great, but in reality it’s just a pipe dream.

The dream is like the wishes of a child at this point but that all changes when they meet an old man called Candy at the ranch. He is weak and sore, very much like his dog “The old man came slowly into the room. He had a broom in his hand. And at his heel there walked a drag-footed sheep dog, grey of muzzle, win pale, blind old eyes.” His dog is his only companion, he had had him since it was a pup. Being a ranch worker is all he knows but wants an easy way out “When they can me here I wish somebody’d shhot me” George and Lennie offer him, an alternative when he becomes part of their dream. He is happy and finally has some hope “You know where’s a place like that?”, he can give them money to help with the house and he could assist them with the chores. Candy knows he is not as young as he used to be, he can’t do as much as he once could have, especially since he lost his hand in a machine, he was only kept on the ranch to do tedious jobs “I ain’t much good, but I could cook and tend the chickens and hoe the garden some”. Candy needs the companionship from George and Lennie because he’s lonely and devastated, since his dog was killed “You seen what they did to my dog tonight?” The men convinced Candy that it was right for the dog, he cared for him,kept him safe and stuck up for him, just as George does for Lennie, Lennie looks up to George. Candy lost his companion, it’s gets shot in the head, what does that say about George and Lennie’s future?

Lennie gets into trouble quite often but not on purpose, he has an immense strength that even he doesn’t realise, “Course he ain’t mean. but he gets in trouble alla time because he’s so damn dumb.” by losing control easily he never thinks of the consequences, a mouse that he once petted bit him, so he squeezed it’s head killing it “I wasn’t doing nothing bad with it. George, jus’ strokin’ it” Trouble just seemed to find Lennie like in a fight with Curley, Curley kept punching him and he just stood there until George shouted get him, he simply took Curley’s fist mid punch and crushed it “He stood crying, his fist lost in Lennie’s paw.”, “The next minute curley was flopping like a fish on a line.” And in Weed where he touched the young girl’s dress he panicked and frightened her, “He wants to touch ever thing he likes” Lennie was given a newborn puppy that he loved but he was too rough with it, and it died, “Why he’s dead” she cried. Everyone thought Curley’s wife was pretty, especially Lennie, “Well you stay away from her, cause she’s a rat trap”. When he told her he loved soft things she innocently said he could touch her hair, but when she said “enough now your wrecking it”, he grabbed her head in his hands with devastating consequences, and he broke her neck “her body flopped like a fish”, “I done a bad thing. I done another bad thing.”, “George ain’t you gonna give me hell?”, “Lennie went back and looked at the dead girl. The puppy lay close to her.” George had always told Lennie that if he needed to get away, he was to go down to the river and George would come and find him there.

The title “Of mice and men” makes you think of the saying “Are you a man or a mouse?”, which basically means “are you man enough to do something”, it’s a provoking statement. It shows us that there will be mice in the story, like Lennie and Candy’s dog they were not brave enough to survive. There will also be men in the story, like George and Candy, they both survived even though their companions didn’t. They had the guts and that is what separated the men from the mice. Even though the strongest pair came through in the end, the dream still failed. Steinbeck mixes up the plot, he changes your views on the characters as at first you think that Curley’s wife is nothing more than a slut, but when you get to know her you realise she is lonely and desperately seeking affection. The stable buck you feel sorry for him being used as the stress toy for the boss but that changes when he takes advantage of the fact that Lennie isn’t that smart and starts to put notions in his head, that George isn’t coming back for him. At the start of the book the dream is Lennie’s fairytale while George still believes in it but it seems to far away to get excited about. Then it turns into reality as Candy is introduced and offers one hundred pound as a deposit for a little house. But in the same day that George has his dream in his hands, he loses it because Lennie kills Curley’s wife. George has to kill Lennie so he won’t have the same regret Candy had. Candy knew he should have been the one to kill his dog not a stranger. As George knew it was kinder to his good friend, Lennie to kill him rather than Curley.

By Shannon Williamson