Lennie In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

One of the main characters in Of Mice and Men is a man named Lennie Small. Lennie is a, "huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide sloping shoulders" (46). Lennie has been causing lots of trouble for himself because of his mental disability. Every time he touches something, specifically an animal, he squeezes so hard yet does not know his own strength. In other words, he does not realize it when he strangles animals to death. To him, it might seem like a normal hug, but to others, it might feel like they are being choked to death. By the time he stops squeezing, the organism he strangled is already dead. Lennie is seen holding a dead mouse, a dead puppy, and a dead woman, all of which Lennie killed due to his love of petting soft things. But because he has a mental disability, these actions are not Lennie's fault. One of his actions happens to be the

climax of the story. When Curley's wife (the name is not mentioned in the book) comes into the shed where Lennie is, she offers him permission to pet her hair. But as usual, Lennie starts choking Curley's wife without even realizing it (at the same time petting her hair). Before he knows it, Curley's wife lay dead on the floor. Realizing that this could cost him his dream of tending rabbits, he escapes from the ranch just as Curley and George arrive at the scene of the accident. Curley becomes angry and vows to kill Lennie. Meanwhile, George is the only one who finds Lennie next to a little pool, crying.
The second main character in Of Mice and Men is Lennie's sidekick, George Milton. He is, "small, [with] strong hands, slender arms, [and] a thin and bony nose" (page 46). Unlike Lennie, George is the one who has to make sure Lennie stays out of trouble and correct his actions. George often gets upset at Lennie because of his forgetfulness of things that have happened to him, what George tells him to do, etc. Nonetheless, George loves Lennie as if he were a brother. In the book, there is a part where Lennie feels as if no one cares about him, so he tells George that he will go live in a cave; doing so will make George's life better, according to him. But George refuses to let his friend go, due to the fact that Lennie cannot take care of himself without getting into trouble. At the end of the book, George kills him with a gun (the book does not specifically state why). However, it can be inferred that George did not want his partner to suffer from Curley's wrath; killing him was the only way to do it. The reason why the two men did not escape was because George knew that no matter how many times he was going to stop Lennie from committing a crime by accident, he will always fail to do so.
Setting
The story takes place south of Soledad, California during the 1930s.

In the first part of the book, George and Lennie are walking along the Salinas River that "drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green"(44). There are "golden foothill slopes curve[d] up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains"(44) on the side of the river. The path on which the men are walking, is described as being "beaten hard by boys coming down from the ranches to swim in the deep pool, and beaten hard by tramps who come wearily down from the highway" (44). In this scene, the reader gets an understanding on where they are headed and what happened outside of the book; the men had just escaped from a place called Weed up north. However, it is unclear as to why they were escaping or what happened to make them. After Lennie gorges water from the river, George decides that they should camp beside the river for the night; they were headed to acquire a job at another farm. George is determined to make sure that this time, Lennie does not make a mistake that can cause them to be chased out of their second

job.