When George tells the story of his dream he stabs the can of beans which is a violent action and it is an action which you would normally associate a stabbing action with killing someone. This action tells us about what he is feeling when he tells the dream. It’s as if he is telling the dream and he knows that it will never become a reality but yet he still talks about it and imagines living the dream.
The second time he talks about the dream, Candy, a worker on the ranch, over hears George telling about it and offers to pay enough money so that they can buy the farm house which George describes so vividly in his dreams. How ever, when George heard Candy say that he’d pay, ‘Georges’s hands stopped working the cards.’ I think this is because he is surprised that his dream could become reality but then again his actions and the way he says shows that he knows that it is never going to happen.
The third time he talks about the dream is when he shoots Lennie. George’s hands in this chapter vary from time to time. This is when he’s holding the gun. ‘His hands shook,’ this shows that he was nervous and also afraid of shooting Lennie which is not surprising really as they were very good friends and had been friends for quite a long time. ‘The hand shook violently but his face set and steadied, he pulled the trigger.’ This quote tells us that he didn’t want to do it but the author says that his face was set and steadied meaning that George had to do it.
After he shot Lennie I think that he was angry, upset and sad because Lennie was his friend and they did everything together but I think George was also relieved now that he didn’t have to what people would think of him all the time or whether he would do anything wrong and generally having to look after him all the time.
The book also vividly describes the other main character, Lennie.
Throughout the book he is often compared to animals mainly a bear. Lennies’ hands are like ‘paws’ which describes that his hands were big, strong and slow like a bear.
This is a total contrast to Georges’ hands which are also strong but they’re they are small and fast like snappy and quick. Lennies’ strong hands are used when Curley starts fighting with him and Lennie fights back but because he doesn’t know his own strength he loses his temper and crushed Curley’s hand with one hand. This shows the immense strength that Lennie has in just his hands.
Lennie’s hands also act as if he is not controlling them but someone else is.
‘Lennie’s closed hand slowly obeyed’
The word obeyed suggests that he is following someone else’s instructions and acts like a toy being controlled by some one else.
As anyone else can see, there are many references to hands in the book ‘Of Mice and Men’ and there are many more than the one’s above.
