47 pages • 1 hour read
John SteinbeckOf Mice and Men
Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 1937A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The narrator describes the lush Salinas Valley south of nearby Soledad, California. The idyllic landscape boasts “golden foothill slopes” and “sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs” (1). George Milton and Lennie Small walk neatly down a worn path and approach an algae-covered pool in a clearing. The men are dressed in identical farmhand attire: floppy black hats and head-to-foot denim adorned with brass buttons. George is small in stature, lean and sharp-featured, while his burly companion “walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws” (2). Contrary to his name, Lennie is big and lumbering. He rushes to drink heartily from the pool, “snorting into the water like a horse” (3). George grabs Lennie, warning him of the dangers of drinking stagnant water.
George then rubs his face with water to cool down, prompting Lennie to imitate his actions and other habitual gestures. Lennie looks to George for approval, but George is preoccupied, cursing the laziness of the bus driver who dropped them miles from their destination on a hot day. George loses his patience when Lennie again asks, “Where we goin’, George?” (4). George reminds him they are going to a different ranch to find work. George checks for their working documents and observes that Lennie has just taken something from his pocket. Under pressure from George, Lennie reveals the dead mouse he has been hiding so that he could stroke it with his finger as they walked. George throws the mouse into the brush, reminding Lennie not to speak when they meet the boss of the new ranch because “if he sees ya work before he hears ya talk, we’re set” (7).
It's Thursday evening, and as the sun begins to set, George warns Lennie not to “do no bad things like you done in Weed” (7), revealing that George and Lennie are on the run to escape Lennie’s trouble. When Lennie talks of supper, George instructs him to find dried branches with which they can build a fire to heat the cans of beans George has been carrying. When Lennie returns with only a single small stick, George knows to ask Lennie for the dead mouse. Lennie bursts into tears when George again throws the dead mouse into the high grass around the pool of water, explaining that the “mouse ain’t fresh, Lennie; and besides, you’ve broke it pettin’ it” (10). Lennie protests, saying that the lady who used to give him mice to pet isn’t here, so there’s nowhere for him to get a fresh mouse. George reminds Lennie that the lady was Lennie’s own Aunt Clara, and “she stopped givin’ ‘em to ya. You always killed ‘em” (10). Lennie blames his tendency to kill the mice on their tiny size, which is why he wishes for rabbits now: “They ain’t so little” (11).
As nighttime approaches, the men build a fire. Lennie’s second request for ketchup for his beans sends George flying into an impatient rage. George rants about what he could do and what he could have if he was on his own. He complains angrily that all he has is Lennie, who “can’t keep a job” and who does “bad things” (12). He mocks Lennie for his most recent mistake of wanting “to feel that girl’s dress—jus’ wanted to pet it like a mouse” (12) and not letting go of the dress when the girl was terrified. Once George’s fury evaporates, he feels ashamed of himself, and Lennie explains that he “was only foolin’” (13) about the ketchup, and besides, even if there was ketchup, he would leave it all for George to enjoy. This overture does little to soothe George, who stares into the fire, saying: “When I think of the swell time I could have without you, I go nuts. I never get no peace” (13). George soon feels remorseful as Lennie sincerely offers to go and leave George alone. Lennie begs George to tell him again “[a]bout the rabbits,” a familiar story that Lennie enjoys; George obliges him:
Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. They come to a ranch an’ work up a stake and then they go inta town and blow their stake […]They ain’t got nothing to look ahead to (15).
Lennie interrupts the story to exclaim his favorite part: “But not us! An’ why? Because… because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that’s why” (15).
During their dinner of beans, George and Lennie discuss the farm of their dreams, where they will live peacefully and comfortably among their farm animals with “a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens” (16). George tests Lennie by asking him what he will do when the boss asks him questions the next day at the ranch, and Lennie proudly responds: “I…I ain’t gonna…say a word” (17). George instructs Lennie to follow the river and come back to this brushy section of land to hide if he “happen[s] to get in trouble like [he] always done before” (17). The two men go to sleep beneath the stars.
Chapter 2 Summary
The following Friday morning, George and Lennie arrive at the ranch. An old man named Candy shows George and Lennie their bunks, explaining that the boss was angry that they had not arrived the night before. When George finds a can of pest control in the box next to his bunk, he complains about the condition of the bed, whose previous inhabitant clearly suffered from a sort of lice or other infestation. Candy tries to minimize the situation, but George scrutinizes the bedding, and Lennie follows his example. George and Lennie unpack while Candy tells them about the other ranch workers, including Crooks, a Black man whose back was damaged by a horse’s kick.
The boss appears, and George explains that they were forced to travel on foot for ten miles. George introduces himself and Lennie, telling the boss that Lennie is a good worker despite his quiet ways, but Lennie gives himself away. The boss notices that George is acting oddly and wonders “what stake [George] got in this guy” (25). To explain their relationship, George lies, claiming that Lennie is his cousin, and says that Lennie “got kicked in the head by a horse when he was a kid” (25). When the boss leaves them, George scolds Lennie for talking and jeopardizing their employment. Candy enters the room with his “drag-footed sheep dog, gray of muzzle” (26) moments before a younger man named Curley comes into the bunkhouse looking for his father, the boss. Curley, whose “glance was at once calculating and pugnacious” (28) takes an immediate dislike to George and Lennie before leaving the bunkhouse. Candy reveals that Curley has experience boxing and that he lives with his wife. Candy warns George about Curley’s wife, who has “got the eye,” describing her as a “tart” (31).
When Candy leaves, George talks sternly with Lennie about Curley, warning him: “If he tangles with you, Lennie, we’re gonna get the can” (32). They agree to avoid interacting with Curley whenever possible, and George reminds Lennie of the hiding spot in the brush if anything ever happens. Curley’s wife makes an appearance at the bunkhouse in search of her husband, with “full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up” and “[h]er hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages” (34). She leaves when a man named Slim says that Curley was heading home, and George reacts badly when Lennie speaks of her admiringly. Lennie is suddenly frightened and says, “I don’ like this place, George. This ain’t no good place. I wanna get outta here” (36).
Slim, the “jerkline skinner, the prince of the ranch, capable of driving ten, sixteen, even twenty mules” (37) introduces himself after George reassures Lennie. Slim and George discuss Lennie’s ability to “buck barley,” and then Carlson, another ranch hand, enters the bunkhouse. Slim’s dog has just had a litter of puppies, and Carlson suggests that Candy “shoot his old dog” (40) and take one of the pups to raise. Lennie expresses interest in a puppy to George as Curley rushes into the bunkhouse looking for his wife. George and Lennie go to lunch as Candy’s old dog returns to the bunkhouse and “lay down and put his head between his paws” (42).
Chapters 1-2 Analysis
Told in the third-person omniscient, the events and characters in Of Mice and Men are presented in unflinching detail from an unbiased point of view. The narrator does not share the thoughts or feelings of the characters and instead focuses keenly on the external, including the natural landscape, animal life, and the characters’ actions and dialogue. The first two chapters introduce the themes of The Fragility of Dreams and Depression-Era Loneliness and Isolation as well as key symbols, including sunrise and sunset, the dream farm, Lennie’s pets, rabbits, and Candy’s dog.
In Chapter 1, the narrator depicts the relationship between George and Lennie in both bold and subtle ways in a landscape that is as much a character in itself as any of the persons involved in the story. Although George states very clearly that his responsibility to Lennie binds him to a situation sometimes out of his control, their conversations and shared dreams of a farm express their solid attachment to each other. George’s feelings towards Lennie are very much like that of a devoted brother who has no choice except to support and look after his less-capable family member. Soledad, the name of the town nearest to the ranch, means “the state of being alone” or “loneliness” in Spanish, which makes it an apt name for a community in which isolation marks the experience of most individuals, including George.
In Chapter 2, Curley and his wife are characterized in a way that makes them both dangerous and untrustworthy to George. George’s loyalty to Lennie makes him a reliable figure, so if George doubts these two individuals, perhaps the reader should too. George’s impressions of both Curley and his wife are informed by Candy’s descriptions of the couple, which function as warnings to George and Lennie.
Three examples of foreshadowing in these initial chapters set the reader up for the tragedy that takes place later in the novella. First, the image of Lennie stroking a dead mouse introduces the notion of death in the novella. Lennie does not appear to notice that keeping a dead mouse in one’s pocket and petting it might be considered grotesque and dark; rather, he enjoys the simple pleasure of the mouse’s tiny size and soft fur. Second, Lennie’s tendency to pet pretty inanimate objects and soft materials has caused George and Lennie significant problems in the past, which suggests that this habit will cause problems in the future. Third, George is immediately wary of Curley after meeting him. His swaggering bravado makes him a man to watch carefully, and George warns Lennie to keep his distance, predicting correctly that only trouble will come of an interaction between the two men, especially if that interaction somehow involves Curley’s wife, who is flirtatious and attention-seeking.
These chapters also introduce the motif of tending to rabbits. Although rabbits are considered docile, innocent creatures, Lennie believes that he will be able to raise rabbits on the farm he and George aspire to own. In this way, rabbits symbolize hope and new beginnings. George stipulates that Lennie can only tend to their future rabbits if he does not get into any trouble, and this promise motivates Lennie to behave. Throughout the novella, Lennie gauges the correctness of his behavior based on whether he is still allowed to “tend to rabbits.”
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