Of Mice And Men Steinbeck Analysis

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Recommended: Lennie’s violent actions in the novel of mice and men

Len Keller
Mr. Shultz
English 1H
5/8/14
OMAM Journals
Text including page citation
Analysis of theme/author’s writing style
“That mouse ain’t fresh, Lennie; and besides you’ve broke it pettin’ it.” (9)

By showing that Lennie has killed a dead mouse with his bare hands just by petting it, Steinbeck foreshadows events to occur later. This may seem like a minor event to the reader at first, but looking back it is easy to see how this shows early that Lennie likes fragile things, but has no control over his own strength. This highlights one of Steinbeck’s main writing techniques: foreshadowing. This moment is also significant because it is the only time throughout the entire book that Steinbeck mentions mice, even though they are in the title.
“Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. . . . With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don’t have to sit in no bar room blowin’ in our jack jus’ because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us.” (13-14)
Through George, Steinbeck establishes two themes of the story early: loneliness and male companionship. Later in the story, it is shown how all of the workers on the ranch besides Lennie and George travel alone. Because of this, all of the characters in the story exhibit some sort of loneliness throughout the story, and it becomes a recurring theme. All of the other workers on the ranch feel jealous of the relationship that Lennie and George have and also want that type of male companionship.
“Carlson said thoughtfully, ‘Well, looka here, Slim. I been th...

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... guys. He’s alla time picking scraps with big guys. Kind of like he’s mad at ‘em because he ain’t a big guy.” (26)
Candy tells George about why Curley doesn’t like Lennie from the beginning. Curley has a limitation: his height. Limitation and flaws are a major theme in this text because almost all of the characters have them and they all use them to their advantage/disadvantage in different ways. For example Curley’s flaw is he’s short. This is a disadvantage for him because it makes him mad at bigger guys and always wants to pick fights with them. This comes back to bite him when he gets in a fight with Lennie and Lennie completely crushes his hand. Lennie’s flaw is that he isn’t smart and doesn’t know his own strength. This also comes back to get him when he accidentally kills Curley’s wife, ruining any chance he and George had of reaching the American Dream.

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