Of Mice And Men Quote Analysis

In the novella “Of Mice and Men” written by John Steinbeck, the author expounds on the theme of the failure produced by the central characters throughout the novella making it clear that the individuals will not succeed. Throughout the novella, many of the characters make bad decisions and fail at the task which foreshadows that the men will not succeed. The quote from Robert Burns poem “To a Mouse” states, “The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry and leave us nought but grief and pain for promised joy.” This quote assembles a theme in the novella by stating that when people go awry, they get punished for making the mistake and leave everyone with not just grief and pain but a promised joy. Which is essential to the theme because

it is admitting failure. The novella makes it obvious that the men will not make it to the farm by displaying on the failures throughout the whole novella. This would foreshadow that they would fail like they had throughout everything. With the repeated mistakes made by Lennie, and him never getting the right punishment for his actions.
One example of failure was Lennie, he failed multiple times throughout the novella, making the same mistake one after another, he made a lot of mistakes that affected George and his life. The starting point of his mistakes was when his Aunt Clara would give him mice, yet he would kill them every time, because he found them very soft. Lennie explained what he was thinking while petting the mice and feeling guilty for killing them. “‘They was so little,’ he said apologetically. ‘I’d pet ‘em and soon they bit my fingers and I pinched a little and then they were dead—because they was so little,’” (9-10). This explains that he had meant no harm to the mice, they were just too little for him to control himself. This quote supports my thesis because Lennie feels as if he is a failure for killing the mice every time. Which suggests that he would fail more throughout the story if he could not find satisfaction with the play mice that his aunt would get him and would kill the real ones every time.
Another example demonstrated in the story is when Lennie makes the mistake of petting a woman's dress and eventually gets rape charges; where if he would have let go when asked he would have been fine.

Later in the story George describes, to Slim, what had happened in Weed with Lennie and the woman. What Lennie did affected their whole life, by making them move out of the town into someone else’s farm before they can make their way to their own farm where Lennie has the dream to tend the rabbits. “‘Well, he seen this girl in a red dress. Dumb bastard like he is, he wants to ever’thing he likes. Just wants to feel it. So he reaches out to this red dress an’ the girl lets out a squawk, and that gets Lennie all mixed up, and he holds on ‘cause that’s the only thing he can think to do. [...] 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,’” (41). This quote also supports my thesis since he had made another mistake that affected their life’s majorly. Since Lennie had continued to fail it was quite obvious that he would have continued to make mistakes if he would not have been killed, since he altered their lives so much to

often.
The next event that occurs is with Lennie and Curley and their big fight that puts both of them in a bad situation where both of them fail to be responsible.

Steinbeck describes the brutal fight between Lennie and Curley where Lennie has a hard time letting Curley go, which affects the outcome of the fight. “Curley’s fist was swinging when Lennie reached for it. The next minute Curley was flopping like a fish on a line, and his closed fist was lost in Lennie’s big hand. George ran down the room. ‘Leggo of him, Lennie. Let go.’ But Lennie watched in terror the flopping little man whom he held. Blood ran down Lennie’s face, one of his eyes was cut and closed. George slapped him in the face again and again, and still Lennie held on to the closed fist.” (63). This quote supports my thesis because although it was an accident, he still messed up by crushing Curley’s hand. He had messed with an important person on the ranch and reacted poorly by not letting go of him putting more damage. Luckily for Lennie, Curley kept his mouth shut because of Slim threatening him, otherwise he would have been canned by The

Boss.
The last mistake that Lennie makes is that he killed the puppy and Curley’s wife by petting them all to hard, because they’re soft and if he wouldn’t have put more force into them they would have both survived. Once Lennie comes to reality, he talks to the pup. “And Lennie said softly to the puppy, Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice. I didn’t bounce you hard.’ He bent the pup’s head up and looked in its face, and he said to it, ‘Now maybe George ain’t gonna let me tend no rabbits, if he fin’s out you got killed,’” (85). He killed the puppy by petting it too hard just like he did the mice, which would support my thesis by making it clear that he was going over the top with being too aggressive. He eventually gets angry with the puppy for dying since it is not as small as the mice. Then with Curley’s wife, he was petting her hair and she was getting uncomfortable, so she yells at him to stop. Steinbeck says “Lennie was in a panic. His face was contorted. She screamed then, and Lennie’s other hand closed over her mouth and nose [...] She struggled violently under his hands, Her feet battered on the hay and she writhed to be free; and from under Lennie’s hand came a muffled screaming [...] ‘George gonna say I done a bad thing. He ain’t gonna let me tend no rabbits.’ [...] Then Lennie grew angry. ‘Now don’t you do that.’ [...] He shook her then, and he was angry with her. ‘Don’t you go yellin’,’ he said, and he shook her; and her body flopped like a fish. And then she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck.” He had done the same thing as he had done with the mice first, the pup, and now Curley’s wife… a human being. The only girl at the ranch, he was going to be punished whether it came from George or someone else. He obviously did not know his own strength or else none of these objects would have died.
Since Lennie had continued to fail throughout the whole novella, it made it quite obvious that something bad was going to happen to him; which indeed something did: he died. For the better. With Lennie to continue to fail it foreshadowed that all the men were going to fail since Lennie was always there and they were used to him. They needed him for heavy lifting, since he was extremely strong compared to everyone else. In the end he finally got the punishment for his actions, and they were a lot less harsh than they would have been if it would have been anyone else would have killed him.