John Steinbeck shows the natural world to be enticingly beautiful and harmonious but threatened by the actions of man; it is a stark contrast to the harshness of the man made environment of the ranch houses etc. The beginning of the novella sets this trend. Steinbeck gives a vivid, detailed description of the natural environment at the pool which is then disturbed abruptly by “two men” (George and Lennie). “The rabbits hurried noiselessly for cover”. The ranch and its buildings, being man-made, are in contrast with the natural world. The bunkhouse, for example, is bare and stark. Even more unnatural is that Candy and Crooks are either deformed or unnatural in appearance. Crooks has a crooked back and Candy lost a hand whilst working on the ranch. Contrasted to these two characters is Lennie, who almost seems as part of the natural world as he is often described in animal terms. “Lennie dabbled his big paw in the water”. Lennie is described as being, as well as physically like an animal, mentally like one to. Strong and powerful but lacking any real intellect. Lennie also has a dream in which he lives by himself in a cave. Maybe this would be the only way the natural world of Lennie would not come into conflict with the unnatural world of man. The human nature of the ranch workers is one of violence, loneliness and bitterness. None of the workers trust each other. This is shown when George tells Lennie and Candy not to tell anyone of their plans to purchase that dream ranch. “Don’t tell nobody about it.”
This issue does have an important relevance to us today. Steinbeck shows that the natural world is being threatened by the actions of man in his novella. This can apply to global warming, which is caused by the actions of man, and is threatening the natural world. Global warming has only come to the publics attention recently and still is an issue that affects us today, just like the actions of man threatening the natural world all those years ago. But human nature has very much changed from that time as the violence, loneliness and bitterness was probably caused by the hardships endured during that time (Great Depression). But people still endure many hardships today, even though on a much smaller scale, people still do become bitter, lonely and violent.
Secondly, dreams. Dreams play a fundamental part of the novella; they are powerful and influence the ranch workers actions. They are usually all the same, the American dream, getting together what money they had to buy a ranch “an’ live on the fatta the lan’”. Becoming self sufficient, but often this dream fails. But others dream of what could have been if they changed a decision they had taken in the past and others use dreams to escape reality. Often the dreams cause adverse effects.
Dreams are one of the ways in which the characters combat their loneliness and hopelessness of their meaningless existence. There are three main examples of this. Firstly the obvious example of the dream farm. A dream shared at first only by George and Lennie, but which later spreads to include Candy and Crooks. Crooks later reveals this is the favourite dream of the itinerant ranch hands; “seems like ever’ guy got land in his head”. To Lennie the dream is an antidote to disappointment and loneliness, and he often asks George to recite the description of the farm to him. But George is more cautious as he knows it is yet only a dream and could fail in becoming a reality. However Lennie doesn’t really seem to understand the bigger picture and is more concerned about how he will be allowed to “tend the rabbits”. This causes critical consequences. As the only reason Lennie held onto Curly’s wife’s head to stop her screaming was because he feared George would not let him “tend the rabbits”. “George gonna say I done a bad thing. He ain’t gonna let me tend no rabbits”. It is a powerful dream (dream ranch) and even the cynical Crooks falls under its spell for a short time. Crooks however dreams of when he was young, on his father’s chicken ranch, a time when he was not racially discriminated against, white and black kids played together and he was happy. The complete opposite of his situation now. He is racially discriminated against, has neither friends nor family and is bitter because of it. So he uses his dreams and memories to escape the harshness of reality. Curley’s wife is another who has dreams, her fantasies of a part in the “pitchers” and a luxury lifestyle. She dreams of being rich and famous, part of her dissatisfaction with life is that her dreams can never measure up to her life. She also uses her dreams to escape the harshness of reality. She blames every one but herself for why her dreams have not materialised and become a reality. Significantly, none of these characters achieve their dreams and in a few cases they cause grave problems.
This issue does have relevance to us today as most people still have dreams and aspirations and many people’s lives are influenced by their dreams, in both a positive and negative way. Many people still use dreams to escape from reality just like Curley’s wife and Crooks. John Steinbeck probably tried to show the consequences of living in dreams rather than in reality, in what happened to Curley’s wife (sad, lonely and died trying to get some attention) and Crooks (sad, lonely and bitter).
Loneliness affects many of the characters, and Steinbeck seems to show that it is a natural and inevitable result of the kind of life they are forced to lead. The itinerant workers are caught in a trap of loneliness, they never stay in one place long enough to form permanent relationships. Even if such relationships existed, they would probably be destroyed by the demands of the itinerant life.
Loneliness affects the characters in different ways and they try to deal with it in different ways, this gives different resulting affects on the characters life. Candy is lonely because he is older than the others and different from the others. His only comfort is his dog, with which he has a lot in common. They are old, deformed or handicapped in one way or another; they have both become useless in their old age and are both nearing the end. For Candy the end of his ranch career and for his dog, the end of his life. He has no relatives, and once his dog is killed is totally alone. He eagerly clutches at the idea of buying a ranch with George and Lennie. But when the plans fall trough, his disappointment is expressed in the bitter words he utters to the dead body of Curley’s wife; “you god damn tramp”…”you done it di’n’t you?” he blames her for ruining his dreams. Just like Candy and his dog are George and Lennie. George had Lennie for company rather than a dog, but Lennie’s intellect is so low that he almost is like a dog. George, like Candy, is left completely alone after Lennie is killed. Another lonely character is Curley’s wife. Newly married and in a strange place she is forbidden by Curley to interact with anyone but him. To counter this, she constantly approaches the ranch workers on the excuse of looking for Curley. The only result is that men regard her as a slut, and Curley becomes even more intensely jealous. In a desperate attempt to overcome her loneliness she plays the tease with Lennie to her peril, as it results in her death. Curley himself is very lonely. His wife hates him as do all the ranch workers who despise him for his cowardice. He has married in an attempt to overcome his loneliness, but has blindly chosen a wife totally inappropriate for the kind of ranch life he lives. His feelings become channeled into violent behaviour which further isolates him from his wife and leads to the incident with Lennie where his hand gets crushed. Crooks is also isolated because he is different. He is discriminated against for being black and for this reason people do not associate with him. He copes with it by keeping a between himself and the other workers. So he feels as if he is excluding them rather than the other way around. He uses memories of the past to give him happiness, which is very rare to him.
Loneliness is an important issue even today. Many people have been reported to commit suicide due to depression caused by loneliness. Loneliness can easily affect people especially in our increasingly secular society where community spirit is reported to be waning. Also, even though racial discrimination is much lower than the times of the novella, it still exists and many people are discriminated against and made to feel excluded. But it is not as common as of the times of the novella when it was common place.
The novella has many examples of needless violence. It is part of ranch life and seems to be in the entire worker’s nature. It is not always physical; it can be oral and sometimes just mental.
Curley is the most obvious violent character and whenever he is around there is a feeling of tension amongst the other workers. He is described as pugnacious and George realizes his character instantly; “…what the hell’s he got on his shoulder”. Being a former boxer this is the only way he probably knows of expressing his emotions. But the incident with Lennie was expected as early Candy explained Curley goes for bigger guys. Almost trying to prove himself in front of the ranch workers. Carlson is also another violent character. He shows almost no emotion when killing Candy’s dog and callously cleans the gun in front of Candy. He is the first to go watch in hope of a fight when Curley thinks Slim may be having an affair with his wife, and later goads Curley more, threatening to; “..Kick your head off”. In the later stages of the novella he is keen to get his gun and join the hunt for Lennie. “Now what the hell ya think is eatin’ them two guys?” These the last words in the novella just showing the sheer in ability Carlson has to feel emotion and understand George’s feeling of what he has just had to do (kill Lennie). Lennie, on the other hand, shows an unintentional violence. He does not even think to fight back against Curley until he is told to by George, but when he does fight back it is with immense un controlled force. Throughout the novella we are shown the little control Lennie has over his own strength, from the mouse in the beginning to Curley’s wife at the end. These actions are animal like; powerful but thoughtless. Ironically this is what Curley’s wife is attracted to. Probably the most violent scene is Lennie’s death. George decides to shoot Lennie himself because earlier on when Candy’s dog was killed he tells George he wished he had done it himself. Also George shoots him in the back of the head because that is the way Carlson described to be the least painful way before killing Candy’s dog. It is the threat of uncontrollable violence Lennie posed as the reason to why he had to be killed in the end.
This issue of violence also has great importance seventy years on. Violence has always existed in communities across the world. Parallels can be drawn from the violence in the book. For example, euthanasia, Lennie and Candy’s dog where killed because they had some sort of medical condition causing problems for themselves or people around them. Just like in many countries today euthanasia takes place, maybe in a more humane way but the ideology behind it are the same. Maybe Steinbeck was trying to convey the message that euthanasia is no better than putting down a dog. When Lennie and Curley fight none of the ranch workers present tried to stop the fight in anyway until great damage had been caused. The same reluctance is shown today. However the violence back then was largely un-policed and on a larger scale.
In conclusion, there are four main issues raised by john Steinbeck in his novella “Of Mice and Men”. Loneliness, Nature, Violence and Dreams. All of these have a certain relevance to our lives today almost seventy years on. But some more than others, as even though the times have changed human nature has not.
