Thoughts on Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men
Of Mice of Men is first and foremost a book of friendship and of a deep, meningful attachment of two men. Their friendship is so beautiful and yet so out of ordinary that often they are questioned about the nature of it. Especially George is suspected to be taking advantage of Lennie's situation. "Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is" (22). When the boss of the ranch talks that way, George is forced to defend himself: "Why ya think I'm sellin' him out" (22)? The strange nature of their friendship is regarded acceptable only by Slim because he is the only character in the book with a deep understanding and sympathy with regard to those two.
Their friendship is not based on equality, though. It is more Lennie being attached to George than vice versa. Lennie follows George just as a puppy follows his master. To Lennie, George represents his dreams. As for George, his repentance for abusing Lennie's underdevelopped intelligence and manners looks like the driving force behind his acceptance Lennie as a companion. However, at this present stage, their friendship is a mature one for George is no longer an abuser of Lennie's mental situation.
Placelessness was one other striking feeling that I had during my reading of the book. Contrary to the plentiness, resourcefulness and spaciousness immanent in the nature as is painted by Steinbeck, George and Lennie feel not to belong anywhere and their inquest for a place in the world is more than a merely material one. What they look for is actually a place where they could feel their manhood in its most general sense. "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place" (13) George's explanation of the men like him and Lennie tells about their real intention of running after a piece of land: They not only want money or the like, but also a sense of being part of something larger and more enduring and, also, more meaningful. Their foolishness and lack of planning the future are the causes of their actually being nowhere even though they shuttle between different ranches and places.
When Candy defends their dream against Curley's assaults and cries, " I planted crops for damn near ever'body in this state, but they wasn't my crops, and when I harvested 'em, it wasn't non eof my harvest" (76), he emphasises the truth that one must have his own dreams no matter how they look small and trivial. Working for others' dreams and never taking a stake in them make one neither rich nor satisfied. Strong and applicaple common dreams are what man longs for.
Candy and Curley's wishing to join the dreams of George and Lennie indicates that, even the most wretched, most ignored people, when seeing a faint light of hope, are ready to join the band of dreamers and visionaries. From this, one can easily deduce what Steinbeck really means: He means that one strong man and one strong dream can move ignorant and ignored masses for a change; this is how revolutions take place. And Steinbeck, a critic of the American Promise (or Dream) as such, whispers into the ears of the dreamers to come together and build something.
Steinbeck's sense of community and his insistance on the importance of communial life caused many to suspect him of not being a 'decent' family man. FBI always kept a close watch on him, suspecting him of being a 'Red' symphatizer. Of Mice and Men, in some respects, is like, in a smaller scale, his another novel, 'In Dubious Battle.' The difference is, the former is approached from a more local level. George and Lennie are never able to make themselves heard, unlike Mac and Jim. And they fail in the end. Because they lack the technique and equipment to realize something. They are not rigorous at all. So, theirs remain to be a personal and local tragedy. Will anyone question the death of Lennie? Will anyone learn about what has happened in the ranch actually?
They will be fast forgotten; and Steinbeck stands up at this moment and convert their personal plight into an immortal tale of heroism.
Of Mice and Men: An Analysis
Of Mice and Men is the panorama of ‘human conditions.’ By this like to emphasize the abundance of different ‘states of being’ in the novella which enriches the ambiance in a way that one is startled by its variety. It is as if the author wanted to demonstrate the possibility of a few ordinary men’s being shaped by internal and external factors in a short span of time. In the book we are shown the predator and the prey, the lustful and the impotent, the realist and the dreamer, the merciless and the merciful, the killer and the life giver. Of Mice and Men, as the comprehensiveness of its name suggests, never stops inquiring about the possibilities in life. This relentless inquest ends up in a tragedy as the author makes it strongly clear that the disequilibrium, which is an indispensable part of human condition, has to be brought back to the normalcy the mode of which is usually determined by the strong. In doing this, Steinbeck does not seem to abhor the imbalance immanent in life. What he criticizes is man’s incapability to attain the optimum level of normalcy. To this question we do not find an answer in the book. Instead we are told how each dream is doomed.
The story begins with the exposition of a dream told by George and his listener is Lennie. Lennie looks like little more than an animal in an enormous human form. He is the opposite of George, “a huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders” (2). He is a pure dreamer and, devoid of the power of creating his own dreams, he urges George to tell him the story of their future and of the rabbits that he is going to tend. Despite their difference in appearance, they look alike in soul for they share a common dream. The fact that “even in the open one stayed behind the other” (2) explains how dreams should be created collectively but there must be a leader for the masses to follow. Unquestionably, in Of Mice and Men, the leader is George.
George himself is an incorrigibly visionary man. But he is a realist dreamer while Lennie is nothing but a sensualist. Lennie lives on his senses and able to remember only what pleases him: “I remember about the rabbits, George” (4). He remembers only the rabbits because he is able to feel them with his own hands. In his childlike manners, Lennie has a quality of dreaming the best possible dreams. Still, unlike George’s modernism, Lennie carries something wild and primitive in him. This explains his reliance on his senses. In page 9, when he acts with the sound of a snap, he lays the dead mouse in George’s hands. But soon, he goes after another dream, a simple one, finds another mouse, never giving up running after the world’s possibilities, the mice, that is, his dreams. Their softness is the same as the softness of the fur of a rabbit and it is the rabbit that binds Lennie to his biggest dream: To have a ranch of their own. “You’ve broke it pettin’ it. [George tells Lennie] You get another mouse that’s fresh and I’ll let you keep it a little while” (9). Clearly, Lennie kills one dream after another and he is poised to do so until they reach what they dream about. In this process of killing the mice and finding more, Lennie gives us the lesson that man should sacrifice his smaller pleasures to attain the farthest and the biggest of his dreams.
Unlike Lennie, who is able to satisfy himself by means of small pleasures, George’s personal and less important dreams are hardly realized. “I could go get a job an’ work, an’ no trouble… Why, I could stay in a cat house all night… I could eat any place I want” (11). However he has got the role of the realist. Even though all his wants and desires are within easy reach, life does not let him fulfill any of them. Because he knows his place in the world. He has more than just his senses. And with this idea of having a permanent place in the world comes the responsibilities. Lennie’s homelessness might put him in a cave. But George has to calculate the possibilities. He has to relinquish his private dreams. He is lonely; feels lonely despite of all of his normality. “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world” (13). This loneliness of normality suggests that being the smart and the realist dreamer make one lonely inside. George’s sense of duty and of protection leaves little room for any other things, thus increasing his oneness.
In the ranch, we are introduced a number of dreamers, who, looking from outside, all seem to be perfectly realist and average. Before eventually joining the dream of Lennie and George, old Candy has to lose his best friend. When he lets his old dog be killed, he feels lonely all of a sudden and begins to listen to George. And he is now as primitive as Lennie. “Lennie watched [George] with wide eyes, and old Candy watched him too” (57). What brings him to Lennie’s level is the appeal of a well nourished dream and Candy is looking for a place where, unlike his dog, he would not be shot in the head.
Is Crooks a dreamer or a realist? The encounter of the dumb and the crooked is the most gripping part in the story. There we see a man whose blackness killed his soul. “’Cause I’m black… They say I stink” (68). This apathy terminates any possibility of Crooks’ having a shared dream with someone. That he has “accumulated more possession than he could carry on his back” (67), still does not allow him to have a dream. Maybe it was his adherence to be on his own and have all he could, whose reason is doubtlessly his being almost forsaken, that killed his ability to raise a dream inside. Upon their encounter in the harness room, an intriguing dialogue takes place between Lennie and Crooks. Lennie’s defense of George’s fidelity and of the authenticity of their dream is notable. The message here is almost audible: All dreams deserve to be defended. Because all dreams tell something about the future and the only thing that man is not sure about is his future. We love dreaming; we cherish them, just as George and Lennie do, and we defend them, for what we defend is our very future which we may never be able to attain. In his particular case, Crooks has let others kill his ability to dream until Lennie, in his primitiveness, persuades him that some things are much closer to reality than others. Until this moment, Crooks’ blackness was like having no George, no guidance, and no dreams. When he catches a gleam of hope, a breaking off of his blackness, he jumps in, wanting to join the dreamers: “If you… guys would want a hand to work for nothing – just his keep, why I’d come an’ lend a hand” (76). The empowering nature of the dreams influences Crooks too and, for a short moment, blackness, that is, being regarded different, does not strangle his dreams.
Curley’s wife, whose name we never learn, is a lonely woman, caught in valley. What leads her into dreaming is dissatisfaction. She and her husband do not get on well with each other. Curley’s impotence causes a deep dissatisfaction in her and this forces her to dreaming. She says, “Think I’m gonna stay in that two-by-four house” (78)? She bluntly expresses when she finds Lennie alone in the barn, that she does not like her husband. But what she lacks is not only a physical dissatisfaction, but her being unable to, as a woman, give birth to her own dreams, as well. She feels trapped and imprisoned. As she is lonely, her dreams are more desires than actualities. Still, as the only woman on the ranch, she shows courage by dangerously getting close to the men despite of her husband’s threatening existence, whose cruelty is easily exerted upon the weak. Unfortunately, when she is unable to handle her dreams well, they become fatal and her life ends in the hands of a primitive dreamer. Having got rid of the heaviness of her unanswered dreams, Curley’s wife now looks like she actually is: “She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young” (93).
Curley is a dream killer. In his personality we are shown the fight between the dreamer and the rigid and severe realist. Between the dumb and the witty. When Lennie crushes Curley’s fist in his hand, he crushes his meanness and manhood also. He reduces Curley to the level he belongs to. In this one-man fight, Lennie simply defends himself and he does not think of trying to kill Curley, What he takes pains in protecting is not his face that is battered down by Curley but their dream and Lennie is well aware of it. He makes a move only when George instructs him: “Get ‘im, Lennie” (63). Lennie gets him and wins against him as he is more whole as a human being than Curley. While Curley’s intelligence resides only in his mind, Lennie’s intelligence, although in an imperfect and disproportionate way, resides in his heart, as well as in his mind. As the novel suggests at this point, the most perfect state of dreaming is when intelligence is spread throughout the body, as is the case with men who are called primitive. The nature of the fight and the result of it indicate that what is regarded primitive is undeniably superior in certain respects. But the world where Lennie lives is not suitable for his primitive superiority against Curley’s cunning realism. Then dreams are in danger. Dreams are dead. Old Candy’s whining leaves no room for hope: “I could of hoed in the garden and wash the dishes for them guys” (96). Like Candy, stripped of his dreams, Lennie becomes an animal again. Unlike Curley’s now dead wife, the goodness in him is now beyond his reach for he is still alive yet dreamless. Unaware of the gun that is going to kill him, Lennie begs George, “Le’s get that place now” (106). In the end we see one dreamer killing the other, not letting foreigners disturb what they brought up together. George wants Lennie to die dreaming as a whole man. “Look acrost the river, Lennie an’ I’ll tell you can almost see it” (105). Lennie dies seeing it and this is the kindest thing George could have done to his friend.
Of Mice and Men tells the story of a dream. And it concludes that each dream is doomed to fail. Steinbeck depicts a solid world which cannot be penetrated by men like George and Lennie. In this kind of world, pure dreamers is bound to perish. And people like George, who are able to survive, are forced to bury their dreams in some faraway place where no one, including the very makers of them, could ever reach.
Work Cited:
Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. New York: Penguin Books, 1993
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The following is my thoughts of " Of mice and men"
As for me, every book is a miraculous journey in my imagination, at the end of which are precious lessons and above all is to discover myself. Among thousands of such journeys, the book leaving the most profound impressions in my mind is the novella “Of mice and men” by an American writer – John Steinbeck, who won the Nobel Prize for his humanitarian and altruistic works.
Compared with his other huge novels, “ Of mice and men” is very humble about the quantity of words but conveys the deep meanings. The story tells the arduous journey of two migrant ranch workers traveling from this ranch to others for jobs in California, America in the Great Depression (1929-1933).George Milton looked small, but agile and experienced. In contrast with him, Small Lennie looked big, but stupid and forgetful. George considered Lennie as his blood brother, so always helped and protected him, which was a burden on his pursuit of happiness.
The novella ignites the dreams and desires in the hopeless plight. Farmers’ fate was very miserable and tragic. They labored at any ranch in the hope of having enough food and finding a job even strenuous was a big gift for them. Despite living in such a wretched condition, George and Lennie never gave up their dream of a beautiful life. Lennie was often forgetful. He even didn’t remember his aunt’s name and the events occurring only a few days ago also slipped out of his memory quickly. However, he never forgot the dream life George was used to painting for him. They had a desire in owning a small farm where they fed chickens, rabbits, growing vegetables and sitting in the house for warmth and listening to the sound of rain on cold rainy days. It was very sad that they cannot achieve their dreams in such social circumstances. However, it was treasurable when human beings still dared to hope. This reminds me of looking forward and never lose faith in myself.
The novella is also a picture full of love among humankind. Without Lennie, George would have had a much better life. Because Lennie often caused trouble, not controlling his own actions, they had to escape from this ranch to others. Nevertheless, George never abandoned Lennie because at the depth of his heart was the sympathy with Lennie – an idiot. When Lennie killed the wife of the master’s son, he must hide himself. Realizing that Lennie definitely would be cruelly killed in the hands of the other farmers, George chose a peaceful death for him. He found Lennie in a bush near the river, telling him the story about their dream farm with chickens, rabbits, vegetables and let his mind float on the sea of beautiful dreams when George put the gun to his head and triggered. At the end of life, he was immersed in dreams. This was deemed to be a knife stabbing George’s heart, but he had no choice. It was love and sympathy that empowered him to do this. This last event of the novella left me a lot of obsessions. Only people in the same class, the same condition could help and sacrifice for each other in such social circumstances.
The ending was a tragedy, but very proper in that society. I definitely have more opportunities to enjoy more interesting books, but “ Of mice and men” is still a deep and real adventure to me.
