John Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men – Advanced Study Guide

Studying the text:

There are many ways in which one can write about a literary text, but those most commonly
encountered at KS4 would be to study character, of theme and of technique. These terms are
explained below, and some pointers given as to how to study them in Of Mice and Men.

Character:

We can study what characters (note the spelling!) are like in themselves, but we see them best in
their relations with other people and the wider society of which they are (or fail to be) a part. Any
statement about what characters are like should be backed up by evidence: quote what they say, or
explain what they do (or both). Do not, however, merely retell narrative (the story) without
comment. Statements of opinion should be followed by reference to events or use of quotation;
quotation should be followed by explanation (if needed) and comment. This is rather mechanical,
but if you do it, you will not go far wrong.

In this guide, general comments will often be made without supporting evidence (to save time). As
you revise you should find and list this evidence. If you cannot find any, ask your teacher who
knows this text very well. You should certainly, in any case, be making your own revision guides,
and marking your copy of the book. Underlining of key passages is allowed, as well as use of
bookmarks.

In Of Mice and Men the characters are clearly drawn and memorable. Some could be the subject of
a whole essay, while others would not. Of course a question on a theme (see below) might require
you to write about characters, anyway: e.g., to discuss loneliness, you write about lonely people.

The principal characters are George Milton and Lennie Small (whose name is the subject of a
feeble joke: “He ain’t small”. Who says this?). Lennie is a man of great physical strength who is
simple (or retarded) though physically well co-ordinated and capable of doing repetitive manual
jobs (bucking barley or driving a cultivator) with skill. Lennie has a man’s body, but a child’s
outlook: he gains pleasure from “pettin’ “ soft things, even dead mice, and loves puppies and
rabbits. He is dependent, emotionally, on George, who organizes his life and reassures him about
their future. Lennie can be easily controlled by firm but calm instructions, as Slim finds out. But
panic in others makes Lennie panic: this happened when he tried to “pet” a girl’s dress, in Weed,
and happens again twice in the narrative: first, when he is attacked by Curley, and second, when
Lennie strokes the hair of Curley’s wife.

Lennie’s deficiencies enable him to be accepted by other defective characters: Candy, Crooks and
Curley’s wife. He poses no threat, and seems to listen patiently (because he has learned the need to
pay close attention, as he remembers so little of what he hears). As a child is comforted by a
bedtime story, so George has come to comfort Lennie with a tale of a golden future. To the reader,
especially today, this imagined future is very modest, yet to these men it is a dream almost
impossible of fulfilment. As George has repeated the story, so he has used set words and phrases,
and Lennie has learned these, too, so he is able to join in the telling at key moments (again, as
young children do). George is a conscientious minder for Lennie but is of course not with him at all
times; and at one such time, Lennie makes the mistake which leads to his death. He strokes the hair
of Curley’s wife (at her invitation) but does it too roughly; she panics and tries to cry out, and
Lennie shakes her violently, breaking her neck.
 John Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men – Advanced Study Guide

There is no proper asylum for Lennie: Curley is vengeful, but even if he could be restrained, Lennie
would face life in a degrading and cruel institution. George’s killing of Lennie, supported by Slim
(“You hadda’ “) is the most merciful course of action.

In the novel’s final chapter we have an interesting insight into Lennie’s thought. Until now we have
had to read his mind from his words and actions. Here, Steinbeck describes how first his Aunt Clara
and second an imaginary talking rabbit, lecture Lennie on his stupidity and failure to respect
George. From this we see how, in his confused fashion, Lennie does understand, and try to cope
with, his mental weakness.

George is called a “smart little guy” by Slim, but corrects this view (as he corrects the idea that
Lennie is a “cuckoo”: i.e., a lunatic). This is not false modesty: George is bright enough to know
that he isn’t very intelligent; if he were, he says, “I wouldn’t be buckin’ barley for my fifty and
found” (=$50 per month, with free board and lodging). George is not stupid, but there is no real
opportunity for self-advancement, as might be achieved in the west today by education. He is, in a
simple way, imaginative: his picture of the small-holding he and Lennie will one day own, is
clearly-drawn and vivid, while some of the phrases have a near-poetic quality in their simplicity:
“Guys like us...are the loneliest guys in the world”.

Lennie is a burden to George, who frequently shows irritation and, sometimes, outright anger to
him. But it is clear that George is not going to leave him. What began vaguely as a duty, after the
death of Aunt Clara, has become a way of life: there is companionship and trust in this relationship,
which makes it almost unique among the ranch-hands. George confesses to Slim how he once
abused this trust by making Lennie perform degrading tricks; but after Lennie nearly drowned,
having (although not able to swim) jumped, on George’s orders, into the Sacramento River, George
has stopped taking advantage of Lennie’s simplicity. At the end of the novella George confronts a
great moral dilemma, and acts decisively, killing Lennie as a last act of friendship.

All the other characters are important for their dealings with these two, but some are worthy of
comment in their own right. Unlike all the other characters, however, is Slim. This man is not just a
hired labourer, but a craftsman (he drives a team of mules or horses). He is “the prince of the
ranch” and he is regarded as an authority. For most of the novel he is a detached figure who
observes Lennie’s and George’s relationship. At one point he is called to make a judgement, when
he decides that Candy’s dog should be shot. By listening to George in the ranch house, Slim allows
him to reveal a great deal about his relations with Lennie, and to describe incidents from their past.

The Boss appears briefly, voicing suspicion at George’s speaking for Lennie, while Whit is
important for one incident. He shows the other ranch-hands a letter in a magazine, written by a
worker he had known on the ranch previously. He relishes the memory of this man (Bill) and shows
his own loneliness, and longing for friendship; yet even as he shows the magazine to George, he
will not let go of the page.
Far more important is a trio of misfits or outsiders: Candy is an old man, reduced to cleaning the
bunkhouse after losing his hand in an accident at work. He has been compensated by his employer
and has saved the money, which he offers to give to George, in return for a share in his and
Lennie’s dream. George is happy to agree to this, but is not interested in buying the smallholding
with Candy alone, after Lennie has killed Curley’s wife.

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Candy is excluded from the social life of the ranch-hands, by his age, his disability and demeaning
job, and by his own choice (“I ain’t got the poop any more”). His lack of status is shown when he is
powerless to save his old dog from being shot. He bitterly reproaches Curley’s wife for the loss of
his dream.

Crooks is also disabled and a Negro, unusual at this time in California. He is excluded by his
colour from the bunkhouse (he is allowed in at Christmas, but has to fight one of the men, it
seems). Crooks protects his feelings by keeping to himself. When Candy tells him of the dream
ranch, he offers to work for nothing. But Curley’s wife reminds him that he has no hope of sharing
the dream, and he pretends the offer was made as a joke.

Curley’s wife is the most pathetic of the outsiders: unlike the others, even Lennie, she seems not to
understand her limitations. She still dreams of what might have been, seeing herself as a potential
film-star. But she has no acting talent, men (one from a travelling show, one who claimed to be in
the movies) make bogus offers as a chat-up line, and now that films require the actress to talk, her
coarse speech would be a handicap. Her naiveté is shown in her belief that her mother has stolen a
letter (from her “contact” in Hollywood) which was obviously never written; her immaturity is
shown in her instant reaction of marrying the loathsome Curley. Desperate for companionship she
does not find at home, she flirts with the ranch-hands. They are uneasy about this, as they think her
to be seriously promiscuous, and are fearful of Curley’s reaction. Her inappropriate dress on the
ranch and her coquettish manner brand her as a “tart”. She is, perhaps, the most pathetic of all the
characters.

Curley, her husband, is a rather two-dimensional villain. Conscious of his own failings, he tries to
earn respect by picking fights, but is vain, boastful and aggressive. He suspects everyone of
laughing at him. His wife’s behaviour ensures that they do laugh, even Candy.

Carlson typifies the men George describes in his “loneliest guys in the world” speech. He is
outwardly friendly, but essentially selfish. He finds the smell of an old dog offensive so the dog
must be shot. He has little regard for the feelings of the dog’s owner. At the end of the novella, as
Slim goes to buy George a drink, and comfort him, it is Carlson who says to Curley, “What the
hell...is eatin’ them two guys?”

There is, clearly, only one real relationship depicted in the novel. All the characters, save George
and Lennie, are more or less in search of a relationship. We see how far their failure to find
friendship or company, even, is due to general attitudes, to their circumstances, and to themselves.

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Themes:
The themes of this novella are very clear: one (the fragility of people’s dreams) is indicated in the
title. The other themes are friendship, and its opposite, loneliness. The novella’s title comes from a
poem, To a Mouse (on turning her up in her nest with the plough) by the Scots poet Robert Burns
(1759-1796):

“The best-laid plans of mice and men

Burns shows how the plans of men are no more secure than those of the mouse, and this is the point
of Steinbeck’s title. The source of the characters’ dreams is their discontent with their present:
Steinbeck shows how poor their lifestyle is: they have few possessions, fewer comforts, no chance
of marriage or family life, no place of their own. George’s and Lennie’s dream is at first a whim,
but becomes clearer. The unexpected opportunity offered by Candy’s money means it is no longer a
fantasy, but the threat to the fulfilment of this dream, ever-present in Lennie’s behaviour finally
destroys it, just as it has become possible. Candy and Crooks both try to share in this dream. Candy
is desperate and, so, ready to trust his fortune to a near stranger. Crooks is most cynical about the
dream of owning land: “Nobody never gets to heaven and nobody never gets no land”, even though
every ranch-hand, he says, has “land in his head”. Yet even he, recalling happy times in his
childhood, hopes, briefly, for a share in George’s and Lennie’s dream. Curley’s wife indulges a
different fantasy, far less likely of fulfilment. As many young women do, she aspires to stardom in
films. She knows she is pretty, and, believing too readily the man who says she is “a natural”,
thinks her talent is merely waiting for an opportunity and that her mother has stolen the letter which
represents her chance for fame. Steinbeck describes precisely the “small grand gesture” with which
she demonstrates to Lennie her supposed talent.

The end of the novella seems to confirm Crooks’s pessimistic view. None of the characters does
achieve his or her dream. But this seems more due to a lack of opportunity and the way society is
organized, than to anything else.

To the people on the ranch, even the broad-minded Slim, George’s and Lennie’s partnership is very
unusual. It is clear that most of them are lonely. Some, like Whit, feel the loneliness and remember
wished-for friends with affection. Others learn to be self-sufficient emotionally, or just plain selfish.
Crooks insists on his right to be alone even though he dislikes it, while Carlson seems incapable of
actually sympathizing with anyone else’s viewpoint. Curley can only communicate through
aggression. He marries to impress the men with his sexual prowess and to boast to his wife about
how he will give “the ol’ one-two” to his opponents. Slim enjoys respect and a friendly manner, if
not actual friendship, from the others on the ranch. He is welcoming and sympathetic to George and
Lennie, and forces Carlson to consider Candy’s feelings: he allows the dog to be shot, but Carlson
must bury it; Candy should not have to do this. Candy is desperate for companionship, and readily
discusses the proposed ranch with Lennie (“I been figurin’ how we can make on them rabbits”)
without any sense that Lennie is too stupid to follow his conversation.

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Crooks astutely notes that Lennie cannot remember what he is saying, but points out that most
people in conversation do this, that being with another is what counts; and so he talks freely to
Lennie, who has the same effect on Curley’s wife. She cannot speak to her husband but pours out
her troubles to Lennie. It is ironic that the retarded man should be taken into the confidence of these
supposedly normal characters. It is unfortunate that the rare relationship of friends should be ended
by one of them; in killing Lennie, George knows (and tells Candy) he is condemning himself to the
life of working for a month, then blowing his pay in the pool-room and “lousy cat-house”. And the
detailed references to the two brothels in Soledad remind us both of the lack of opportunity for the
ranch-hands to have a lasting sexual relationship, and the absence of opportunities for women to
work in respectable jobs.

The author’s technique:

Steinbeck’s narrative method is unremarkable but effective in a simple way; for this reason it is not
an obvious subject for study. The structure of the novella is simple: each chapter is an extended
episode, in the same place. Some things happen while others, which have happened, are re-told
(George tells Slim about Weed; Whit tells the hands about Bill Tenner’s letter; Curley’s wife tells
Lennie about her past). The novella is written in the third person, but there is no single viewpoint.
We read of scenes in which George or Lennie or both are present, but we may briefly follow other
characters (Candy or Crooks, say). We are never told what anyone is thinking, but must work this
out from what people say, with one curious exception. In the final chapter, Steinbeck describes the
imaginary talking rabbit (as one would expect from Lennie, it does not see anything odd in telling
him he is not fit “to lick the boots of no rabbit”!) and the remembered Aunt Clara, who appear to
Lennie, their voices supplied by his talking aloud.

Time and place are very skilfully controlled. Though events from earlier are recalled, what is
directly narrated takes place over a single weekend. The narrative is framed by the opening and
closing chapters, which are set in a beautiful clearing by a stream, close to the ranch. All the other
chapters are set on the ranch, inside: in the bunkhouse, in Crooks’s room or in the barn. The text is
very short, and yet a great proportion is taken up with dialogue, in the form of direct speech. It is
clear from all of this (a series of “scenes”; no single viewpoint, nor access to thought; unity of time
and place; past events recalled in conversation; indoor locations, and heavy reliance on dialogue)
that the novella has been written with an eye to dramatization. It is not surprising to discover that
Steinbeck himself did write a dramatization for the stage, and that this has subsequently been made
into (two) very successful feature films.

The language of the narrative is fairly simple; most vocabulary is of an everyday kind, except for
names of items of farm equipment to which Steinbeck refers. In the dialogue, Steinbeck uses slang
and non-standard terms (“would of”, “brang” and so on) to convey an authentic sense of the
speaking voice.

Apart from the symbolism in the title, we should note the symbolic function of the killing of
Candy’s old dog. At various points in the novel shooting is mentioned as a way out of trouble (as
when George says he would shoot himself if he were related to Lennie). The killing of the dog
parallels the shooting of Lennie: both are depicted as merciful, in both cases the shot is in the same
place (base of the skull) and both killings are approved by Slim.