Of Mice and Men

“That ranch we’re goin’ to is right down there about a quarter mile. We’re gonna so in an’ see the boss. Now look—I’ll give him the work tickets, but you ain’t gonna say a word. You just stand there and don’t say nothing.”

George gives Lennie strict orders not to speak until after both men have secured work on the ranch. Lennie’s manner of speech highlights his intellectual disability, which may lead the boss to reject the pair. Once Lennie is put to work, his strength and his single-mindedness become significant assets, but if he is allowed to speak, Lennie may never be given the chance to prove how strong of a worker he can be.

“‘An’ live off the fatta the lan’,’ Lennie shouted. ‘An’ have rabbits. Go on, George! Tell about what we’re gonna have in the garden and about the rabbits in the cages and about the rain in the winter and the stove, and how thick the cream is on the milk like you can hardly cut it. Tell about that, George.’”

The italics in this quote indicate phrases that particularly excite Lennie. He repeats these words often throughout the novella when he talks about the dream farm he and George hope to buy some unspecified time in the future. He longs to have rabbits to stroke with their soft fur and unlimited amounts of food that grow energetically in land that is unafflicted by drought. George talks about the dream farm to soothe Lennie and to soothe himself when life is proving to be hard, sometimes spontaneously and sometimes at Lennie’s specific request.

“They made their beds on the sand, and as the blaze dropped from the fire the sphere of light grew smaller; the curling branches disappeared and only a faint glimmer showed where the tree trunks were.”

At the end of the first chapter, the sun goes down as George and Lennie prepare for sleep. As the action of the novella unfolds over the course of only a few days, the narrator is sure to mention the time of day at the start and end of each chapter. Mornings, evenings, and nightfall all play significant roles in the story, and all stages of the day represent new beginnings, ongoing action, or final moments of closure.

“He wore blue jean trousers, a flannel shirt, a black, unbuttoned vest and a black coat. His thumbs were stuck in his belt, on each side of a square steel buckle. On his head was a soiled brown Stetson hat, and he wore high-heeled boots and spurs to prove he was not a laboring man.”

This description of the boss at the ranch emphasizes the hierarchy among working agricultural men during the Depression. This description of the boss’s choices of clothing is comparatively lengthy and carries some attention to detail. It separates the boss from the other workers, suggesting that he still has the option of selecting from an assortment of clothes, a luxury traveling workers like George and Lennie may not enjoy. The impracticality of his high-heeled boots and spurs for agricultural work ensures that the boss is not mistaken for a laborer, unlike George and Lennie, who are dressed in denim trousers and coats and shapeless hats as described in Chapter 1.

“Well…tell you what. Curley’s like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys. He’s alla time picking scraps with big guys. Kind of like he’s mad at ‘em because he ain’t a big guy. You seen little guys like that, ain’t you? Always scrappy?”

Candy’s description of Curley captures the essence of Curley’s pugnacious Napoleon complex in a few brief and simple sentences. In this quote, Candy responds to George’s confused irritation at Curley’s inexplicable targeting of Lennie within moments of meeting him. This brief characterization of Curley foreshadows the trouble to come between him and Lennie, as Curley’s temperament makes a conflict between the two men seem unavoidable.

“George was watching the door. He said ominously, ‘Well, he better watch out for Lennie. Lennie ain’t no fighter, but Lennie’s strong and quick and Lennie don’t know no rules.’”

Although Curley may talk fearlessly to Lennie in front of the other men, George knows that Lennie’s strength and ignorance are not to be underestimated. Lennie’s lack of understanding is just as dangerous as his brawn, as he doesn’t know what it means to control himself and to stop before he does more damage than intended. George’s words foreshadow Lennie’s accidental murder of Curley’s wife, when Lennie breaks her neck without even realizing it.

“She put her hands behind her back and leaned against the door frame so that her body was thrown forward. ‘You’re the new fellas that just come, ain’t ya?’”

Curley’s wife appears at the bunkhouse as George and Lennie are getting settled in. She positions herself in a provocative way to call attention to herself, and immediately, George is cautious. He intuitively knows that any man who engages with Curley’s wife is risking his livelihood as her manipulative manner suggests that she is not to be trusted.

“This was Slim, the jerkline skinner. His hatchet face was ageless. He might have been thirty-five or fifty. His ear heard more than was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought. His hands, large and lean, were as delicate in their actions as those of a temple dancer.”

This description of Slim emphasizes his role in the novella as a sage, a person of such wisdom and integrity that he commands trust and authority without even asking for it. Like the other men who work on the ranch, George trusts Slim. This trust will prove to be a great support to George at the end of the novella.

“Well, this girl squawks and squawks. I was jus’ a little bit off, and I heard all the yellin’, so I comes running, an’ by that time Lennie’s so scared all he can think to do is jus’ hold on. I socked him over the head with a fence picket to make him let go. He was so scairt he couldn’t let go of that dress. And he’s so God damn strong, you know.”

George tells Slim the truth about their last job and the real reason behind his and Lennie’s arrival at the ranch. In Weed, Lennie was drawn to the fabric of a girl’s dress, and in his childish way, he holds on to the girl’s dress in a way that frightens her. Ironically, Lennie’s panic inspires him to hold on even more determinedly, which only makes the problem worse; if he could only know to let go, he could have avoided the rape accusation and other ensuing troubles.

“It was silent outside. Carlson’s footsteps died away. The silence came into the room. And the silence lasted.”

The repetition of the word “silence” is ominous, as the men in the bunkhouse are simply waiting for the sound of a single gunshot that means that Candy’s old dog is dead. In the stillness of the evening, the silence must seem loud and oppressive, adding to the suspense of the moment and the emotional power of Candy’s loss. Candy’s dog is an important symbol in the novella, and his death foreshadows how Lennie dies in Chapter 6.

“She ain’t concealin’ nothing. I never seen nobody like her. She got the eye goin’ all the time on everybody. I bet she even gives the stable buck the eye. I don’t know what the hell she wants.”

Whit, another ranch hand, takes an angry and frustrated tone when he speaks of Curley’s wife to George. Her power over the men irritates him; one false word from her, or one flirtation gone wrong, and the men involved could lose their jobs. The fact that she does not keep her distance from the men exasperates Whit because it adds an unnecessary level of stress to what could easily be a straightforward existence for him and the others.

“They looked at one another, amazed. This thing they had never really believed in was coming true. George said reverently, ‘Jesus Christ! I bet we could swing her.’ His eyes were full of wonder. ‘I bet we could swing her,’ he repeated softly.”

Candy has just revealed to George and Lennie that he has a significant amount of money saved away and that he would like to put it towards the purchase of the farm the two friends have in mind for themselves. Although the amount of money they could gather in a month is still short of the asking price, George believes that it could be just enough for the woman selling the farm. Suddenly, the dream farm can be spoken of as a real possibility, which makes George hopeful.

“Then Slim straightened up and regarded Lennie with horror. ‘We got to get him to a doctor,’ he said. ‘Looks to me like ever’ bone in his han’ is bust.’”

Curley needlessly picks a fight with Lennie, and only when George commands Lennie to fight back and defend himself does Lennie act. Immediately, Lennie crushes Curley’s hand. Although Lennie could have stopped the attack without doing such serious damage to Curley, he is unknowing of his limits and goes too far. This scene demonstrates Lennie’s potential to harm, but the poetic justice of what happens to Curley allows Lennie to maintain his sympathetic nature.

“And scattered about the floor were a number of personal possessions; for, being alone, Crooks could leave his things about, and being a stable buck and a cripple, he was more permanent than the other men, and he had accumulated more possessions than he could carry on his back.”

Crooks’s room is untidy in a way that characterizes a private space. In this passage, Crooks’s privacy and his belongings seem like positives, but the reality is that his life is lonely, and he lives with difficult limitations due to his physical disability and his race, both forces that are out of his control. Although others may envy Crooks for his living situation in a superficial way, in truth, Crooks would likely prefer to live like the other men instead of being treated differently.

“Crooks’ face lighted with pleasure in his torture. ‘Nobody can tell what a guy’ll do,’ he observed calmly. ‘Le’s say he wants to come back and can’t. S’pose he gets killed or hurt so he can’t come back.’”

Once Crooks realizes that Lennie is not intelligent, he plays a cruel game with Lennie. This game allows Crooks to feel powerful over a white man, a feeling Crooks rarely experiences. Lennie is a safe person for Crooks to manipulate because Lennie’s limitations mean that Lennie cannot complain about being treated badly. Even though Crooks appears mean and heartless in this passage, his behavior can be explained by the long years of being mistreated himself by white men.

“Sure I gotta husban’. You all seen him. Swell guy, ain’t he? Spends all his time sayin’ what he’s gonna do to guys he don’t like, and he don’t like nobody. Think I’m gonna stay in that two-by-four house and listen how Curley’s gonna lead with left twice, and then bring in the ol’ right cross?”

Curley’s wife is honest about her unhappy match. She knows that Curley is a bully and a big-talker, and she is savvy enough to realize that he is an unpopular figure among the workmen. She speaks of her husband negatively and complains of her feelings of boredom with him, which suggests that her flirtatious behaviors may not be merely flippant; she may be looking for another man, someone to rescue her from her miserable situation.

“For a moment she stood over him as though waiting for him to move so that she could whip at him again; but Crooks sat perfectly still, his eyes averted, everything that might be hurt drawn in. She turned at last to the other two.”

Curley’s wife asserts her power as a white woman over Crooks when he speaks to her in a way she doesn’t like. She knows that she can falsely accuse Crooks of touching her, or worse, and her word against his means certain death for him as a Black man. Crooks accepts his powerlessness in this moment, which infuriates Candy, who is standing by witnessing the whole scene as it unfolds in Crooks’s room in the barn. That Curley’s wife is treating Crooks so cruelly in his own space further illustrates Steinbeck’s commentary on racial inequality and injustice. However, just as Crooks exerted his dominance over Lennie, Curley’s wife, a marginalized woman, seizes the opportunity to do the same to someone else.

“‘God damn you,’ he cried. ‘Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice.’ He picked up the pup and hurled it from him. He turned his back on it.”

Lennie feels anger towards the puppy he has just killed because he thought the puppy would be big enough to survive his pets. George himself had told Lennie that a puppy would likely be big enough to avoid being injured by Lennie, but George meant a puppy that was much more grown up than a newborn. Moments after this exchange between Lennie and the dead puppy, Curley’s wife enters the barn. The death of Lennie’s puppy foreshadows the death of Curley’s wife.

“‘I lived right in Salinas,’ she said. ‘Come there when I was a kid. Well, a show come through, an’ I met one of the actors. He says I could go with that show. But my ol’ lady wouldn’t let me. She says because I was on’y fifteen. But the guy says I coulda. If I’d went, I wouldn’t be livin’ like this, you bet.’”

Curley’s wife confides her fallen dreams of life as a film star to Lennie. Lennie doesn’t understand or listen carefully to her words, which annoys her momentarily. However, she is so relieved to speak the truth to someone that she carries on and sits closer to Lennie in an intimate moment, unknowingly making herself more vulnerable. The suspense of these moments is a result of the foreshadowing in earlier parts of the novella.

“‘You’re nuts,’ she said. ‘But you’re a kinda nice fella. Jus’ like a big baby. But a person can see kinda what you mean. When I’m doin’ my hair sometimes I jus’ set an’ stroke it ‘cause it’s so soft.’”

This passage is an example of dramatic irony. Readers know what happens when Lennie pets soft things, but Curley’s wife has no idea that Lennie cannot resist softness and that his grip will be as powerful as it is. Her fear scares Lennie, who knows he shouldn’t be talking to her, and Lennie overpowers her as he tries to calm her down, which only panics her further. Within moments, Lennie has inadvertently broken her neck while trying to shake her into silent submission so that he won’t get into trouble with George.

“The sun streaks were high on the wall by now, and the light was growing soft in the barn. Curley’s wife lay on her back, and she was half covered with hay.”

The image of Curley’s wife’s body partially covered by hay recalls the image of the dead puppy, also covered partially by hay, from a few pages earlier in the text. In both situations, Lennie is incapable of properly hiding the evidence of his unwitting violence, and his attempts are poignant in their uselessness. As well, the light in the barn changes to indicate the sun is going down, a literary symbol of death, both that of Curley’s wife and Lennie’s own approaching death in the brush by the pool.

“Carlson came running in. ‘The bastard’s stole my Luger,’ he shouted. ‘It ain’t in my bag.’ Curley followed him, and Curley carried a shotgun in his good hand. Curley was cold now.”

Carlson mistakenly believes that Lennie is resourceful enough to steal Carlson’s gun and arm himself before fleeing. Although most men in Lennie’s position would make the effort to do something self-protective before running away, Lennie’s only thought is to follow George’s instruction and go straight to his hiding place in the brush. In reality, George has stolen Carlson’s gun. As soon as George figured out what happened to Curley’s wife, he knew that he would have to be the man to kill Lennie as punishment for his crime. Like Candy’s wish that he had been the one to shoot his old dog, because he loved and respected the dog, George wishes to do the same for Lennie.

“Suddenly Lennie appeared out of the brush, and he came as silently as a creeping bear moves. The heron pounded the air with its wings, jacked itself clear of the water and flew off down river. The little snake slid in among the reeds at the pool’s side.” 

In Chapter 1, the narrator uses a simile comparing Lennie to a bear, and here the same image is repeated. In a physical sense, Lennie does resemble a bear, but the likeness also works for Lennie’s innocence. His suggestions that he leave George in peace and live in a cave, like a bear, echo this same sentiment. The mention of other wild creatures like the heron and the snake enhances Lennie’s connection to nature in these moments before his death.