Of Mice and Men

Lennie Small is a migrant worker like George, and he is a static character. Lennie is a physically intimidating man, being large and powerfully built, but his intellectual disability means he has the outlook and sensibility of a child. The irony of his name is deliberate; Lennie is not a small man in stature, but he has a mind that is only capable of comprehending small ideas. Despite his size, he is truly gentle and kind. Lennie’s limitations convey a childlike innocence, though at times, Lennie gets into trouble for not knowing his own strength and for his ignorance of social boundaries. Lennie has a particular passion for animals, especially small, soft animals he can stroke soothingly and nurture in his imagination. However, this positive characteristic ironically leads to his downfall when a woman with soft hair takes the place of an animal with soft fur, to tragic ends. Before Lennie’s death, he hopes to raise rabbits on the farm he will someday share with George. Whether or not Lennie is actually fit to raise animals becomes a moot point when Lennie dies, bringing ironic closure to this dream of wholesome domestic life.

Slim, “the big tall skinner” (23) is a leader among the men at the ranch. The other men regard him as the “prince of the ranch” (33). He is skilled, confident, and able to stand up to Curley, the boss’s difficult and volatile son. Curley suspects Slim of having an affair with his wife, but Slim denies the suggestion successfully, earning Slim the respect of the other men. Slim is a friendly man of indeterminate age. George trusts him with the truth about his relationship with Lennie and the real reason why they had to leave their last job in Weed. Slim is the only person who understands George’s regret at the end of the novella, and he compassionately offers George support after Lennie’s death by the pool.

Candy is an “old swamper” whose future on the ranch is uncertain due to an accident that has left him with only one hand. He remains on the farm as a handyman but fears that he will eventually outlive his usefulness and be fired. Candy’s waning vitality is revived only when George and Lennie talk about the dream farm. Candy offers his savings towards the purchase of the farm, so George and Lennie open the dream up to include Candy. When Curley’s wife dies, Candy’s first thought is of the farm, and he feels the loss of the dream keenly. To Candy, it means a crushing loss of companionship, self-sufficiency, and security in his final years. On some level, Candy may fear being regarded like his old dog, a useless burden in need of a merciful death.

Short, tough, and inexplicably angry, Curley enjoys a privileged position at the ranch as the boss’s son. He is the novella’s antagonist and is a static character. He treats the other men badly knowing he will never be reprimanded or fired for his disrespect, displaying a lack of integrity in a general sense of the word. Curley’s past as a boxer gives him a swagger and a pride that irritate the other ranch hands, and as soon as he meets the enormous Lennie, he dislikes him immediately, sensing weakness in Lennie and perhaps in himself. Curley has recently married a pretty, young woman who pays too much attention to the other men working on the ranch, and he appears to spend a lot of time looking for her. Curley sports a “glove fulla vaseline” on his left hand, a custom he attributes to “keepin’ [his] hand soft for his wife” (58).

Nameless and exaggerated in her femininity, Curley’s wife is the only woman within miles of the farmhands who work her father-in-law’s ranch. In her loneliness and her unhappy marriage, she seeks the attention of the other men who work the ranch, efforts which earn her a reputation as a flirtatious troublemaker. While still living with her mother, she twice was told that with her looks, she could have a career in the movies, and this fantasy exacerbates her dissatisfaction with her current life on the ranch. Feeling she deserves more than a cocksure husband like Curley and a boring life on a farm, Curley’s wife inadvertently makes choices that lead to her death and that of Lennie Small.

Crooks is the only Black man on the ranch. Crooks leads a lonely existence in his room in the barn. He is called “Crooks” because of a disfigurement in his spine that resulted from an accident in his past. Although he is the only man on the ranch to enjoy his own space, his isolation is not by choice; he is shut out of a community life at the bunkhouse because of his race, and his loneliness manifests in anger and an insistence that isolation is what he wants. When Lennie innocently approaches him in his room, Crooks is secretly pleased for the company, and in his keen need for connection, he impulsively offers to work for free on the dream farm Lennie speaks of incessantly. Only when an encounter with Curley’s wife reminds him of his non-status as a Black man does the spell break, and Crooks returns to his lonely life as a stable hand, free of dreams that will never become a reality.

Carlson, “a powerful, big-stomached man,” is one of the ranch hands, and he owns a prized Luger. He encourages Candy to put his old dog out of its misery, and Carlson goes as far as to offer to do the deed himself. Candy acquiesces, and Carlson promises that the dog won’t suffer. Later, after Lennie kills Curley’s wife, George steals Carlson’s Luger to put Lennie out of his misery before the other men can harm him. In the closing scene of the novella, Carlson is unable to comprehend why Slim and George are solemn, indicating him to be an apathetic, static character.