The book Of Mice and Men is a powerful display of friendship in text. It tells of two migrant workers, George Milton and Lennie Small, who are living their lives on the country of California during the Great Depression. When the odds are against them, the only thing Lennie and George had were each other despite the contrast in their personalities. Lennie, as a character, can be simplified by distinct characteristics. He has the personality of a small child of a due to his obvious mental handicaps, however the book personifies him as an animalistic, for example “Behind him walked his opposite, a huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, and wide, sloping shoulders; and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear …show more content…
drags his paws.
His arms did not swing at his sides, but hung loosely.” (Page 1) George, his companion is the opposite. Steinbeck describes George as a small man with sharp features, and although he may get angry with him, he likes and treats Lennie as the one thing he needs, a friend. George Milton is a complex character who most readers might not completely understand reading Of Mice and Men one time. One of his first lines of dialogue echoes his character and his relationship to Lennie. “ “Lennie!” he said sharply. “Lennie, for God’ sakes don’t drink so much.” Lennie continued to snort into the pool. The small man leaned over and shook him by the shoulder. “Lennie. You gonna be sick like you was last night.” ” (Page 1) At times George can be terse and unkind to Lennie, but in his heart he still cares for him and tries to protect Lennie. His spiel about ketchup to Lennie might seem bitter and angry "Well, we ain't got any … God a'mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an' work, an' no trouble. No mess at all, and when the end of the month come I could take my fifty bucks and go into town and get whatever I want. Why, I could stay in a cat house all night. I could eat any place I want, hotel or any place, and order any damn thing I could think of. …show more content…
An' I could do all that every damn month. Get a gallon of whisky, or set in a pool room and play cards or shoot pool… An' whatta I got … I got you!." (page 6) but in reality it’s his declaration of companionship. He doesn't actually want to be in “cat houses” or that sort; he’s paralleling their “But not us” motto, and that won’t be him. Lennie and George are going to be different, they’re going to be tending their farm together, they have a future. Lennie is George’s only company, he thrives off of helping Lennie. During the course of the novel and at his time working in the fields, George comes to the realization that the weakest are always are always preyed on. An example of this is seen when Curley’s wife threatens Crooks. After Lennie’s death, George loses it all, his ideals, his companion and what makes him special, he becomes “one of those ranch guys with no fambly, the loneliest guys in the world” George descends, he becomes a regular of the Great Depression, a man with no home that goes to farms searching for work. Lennie Smalls as a character is simplistic and repetitive; Steinbeck shows this with the many times when their dream is repeated for several moments in the novel in which Lennie finds (and kills) small animals like mice or dogs.
These small soft things give Lennie what he needs, a sense of security that’s not George, his own independence outside of George. As described as above Lennie is often treated like an animal by other characters and the author himself. “Suddenly Lennie appeared out of the brush, and he came as silently as a creeping bear moves.” (Page 49) Lennie has two personality traits that relate him to animals. First his physique, his body is built and described as a bear constantly. His body is large and based on his interaction with Curley when he broke bones in his hand, he might be as strong as some animals. Secondly, Lennie's actions; he seems to not have any awareness of guilt or a conscious towards other living things. He’s extremely loyal to George, but does he understand that it’s even called loyalty or how in depth his own is? It’s obvious he has a very basic understanding of consequences, “George will be mad” or “I won’t be able to tend to the rabbits”. Lumbering body plus no morals seems to make an explosion called animalistic behaviour. His relationship with George is symbolic and symbiotic mutualism of a dog pet and its owner. The owner, George takes good care of its companion, and the dog, Lennie gives the owner something to care of, loyalty and
dreams, all in a bundle of a human man. Friendship is one prevalent theme in Of Mice and Men. Hope, The American Dream and loneliness are the only factors keeping George and Lennie’s friendship together. For example; “ "If you don' want me I can g off in the hills an' find a cave. I can go away any time." "No—look! I was jus' foolin', Lennie. 'Cause I want you to stay with me." (Page 7) George didn't want Lennie to go because they are friends, that Lennie is worth more than the $50 George could be getting every week, Lennie is needed as he gives George a sense of family. The notion of family is also supported with this quote, “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place. They come to a ranch an' work up a stake and then they go inta town and blow their stake, and the first thing you know they're poundin' their tail on some other ranch. They ain't got nothing to look ahead to.” He knows that he and Lennie are different from those guys, George and Lennie are family to each other, and in their dreams they won’t be tending to the ranch alone. In the beginning, their relationship can appear rocky and one-sided, but at the end of the novel it becomes clear. George and Lennie love and cherish each other as friends, each in their own way. “I was only foolin', George. I don't want no ketchup. I wouldn't eat no ketchup if it was right here beside me. If it was here, you could have some. But I wouldn't eat none, George. I'd leave it all for you. You could cover your beans with it and I wouldn't touch none of it.”(Page 7) Lennie is mentally incapable of helping George the way he does to him, but he tries to help his friend in his own Lennie way- giving him imaginary ketchup. It might not seem like much but it’s Lennie showing George that if there was ketchup, he’d be given it, because that how much he cares about his friend. On page 14, when George is speaking to Curley, I believe its a testament of their friendship to those who doubt, yes it is that way, yes we are friends despite Lennie’s flaws. Throughout the novel, George comforts Lennie in the only way he can, telling him of their ranch pipe dream.Going forward to when George is forced to help his friend in his last minutes of life, he does it again. George protects him in the only manner he knows, filling Lennie with happy thoughts of him tending rabbits before shooting him in the back of his head. This is a direct parallel to Candy’s Dog. “Look, Candy. This ol’ dog jus’ suffers hisself all the time. If you was to take him out and shoot him right in the back of the head—” he leaned over and pointed, “—right there, why he’d never know what hit him.” (Page 23) George shot Lennie in the head, and he never knew what hit him, compared to the lynch mob apprehending Lennie, in which Lennie would just suffer more. In addition, George felt a responsibility for Lennie, he indirectly allowed these situation to happen by them going to the farm, so he should be responsible for sending Lennie to a place with no hate or pain, where Lennie can tend all the rabbits he wants. In the end, their pipe dream is literally shot through, and George becomes normal, he no longer has family.
In chapter one, George and Lennie are introduced onto the scene and you get to know them a little bit and you get to see how they are related/ their relationship. When I read this first part, I could tell that George was pretty much Lennie’s caretaker and it was his job to find Lennie a job and make sure he ate enough and stayed a live. He kind of resented having to drag Lennie around (pg 11~12: “Well we ain’t got any!” George exploded. “Whatever we ain’t got, you want. If I was alone I could live so easy… But wadda I got? I got you. You can’t keep a job and you loose me every job I get.”), because Lennie’s a bit slow and he messes up a lot. He tries really hard to be good and listen to what George tells him to do, but in the end of every situation, Lennie forgets what George told him beforehand and sometimes it creates a little trouble (pg 45~46: “Well, he seen this girl in this red dress. Dumb like he is, he likes to touch ever’thing he likes. Just wants to feel it. So he reaches out to feel 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. Well, this girl just squawks and squawks. I was jus’ a little bit off, and I heard all the yellin’, so I comes running, an’ 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. He was so scairt he couldn’t let go of the dress. And he’s so strong, you know… Well, that girl rabbits in an’ tells the law she’s been raped. The guys in Weed start a party out to lynch Lennie. So we sit in an irrigation ditch under water all the rest of that day.”). But when you look at them, you can tell that George is...
John Steinbeck wrote a story about two men that only had each to depend on. Many of George and Lennie's struggles come from things they cannot control such as Lennie's mental issues. George and Lennie are very poor and they work on farms together, but they have to move a lot because Lennie always does something stupid. The greatest tragedy in Mice and Men was when Lennie was left alone with Curley's wife. She was the reason why Lennie ended up being killed. She knew of to manipulate others to get her way and that is what she relies on most of the time.
Lennie, like a mouse, is helpless. Lennie relies on George to think for him like mice rely on scraps of food from the dinner table to eat.
Have you ever read Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck? If so, you probably remember Lennie, George's companion. Throughout the novel, Lennie and George dream of having their own farm. They work on a ranch to save money for their dream farm. Lennie is a big, strong, man with rounded features. He is at times very forgetful, absent-minded, and one-dimensional.
Was George to harsh or too fast with his decision to kill Lennie? Ever since Lennie was born he has needed help “living” and it started with his aunt Clara. When his aunt Clara died Lennie needed someone to help him with his everyday life and someone that could be there and tell him what to do. Lennie starts to travel with a good family friend George. In the book “Of Mice and Men” there is many cases where Lennie just “holds on” to George. George realizes in the end of the book Lennie has done too much harm and needs to essentially go away. George then shoots Lennie in the back of the head because Lennie couldn't live on his own if he were to run away from Curly and the rest of the gang of workers coming after him. George did the right thing because Lennie was unstable and George knows lennie didn't mean to harm anything. He doesn't know his own strength and George really wasn't qualified to help Lennie learn that he is powerful beyond measure.
At the beginning, the author describes his movement using a metaphor, as Lennie “[drags] his feet… the way a bear drags his paws” (p.2), to show that he is much alike a bear physically. In addition, Steinbeck uses a simile to emphasize Lennie’s animal-like behaviour, as he “[drinks] wit long gulps, snorting into the water like a horse” (p.3). By comparing his physical and behavioural characteristics, this can foreshadow that the author implies that Lennie is seen as more animal than human because of his metal disabilities. George further makes it evident when he infers that “somebody [would] shoot [him] for a coyote if [he] was by [himself]” (p.12). This shows that people are scared of him and his unpredictable, animal-like behaviour because of the lack of understanding about mental health during the early 1900s. Furthermore, this can be the foundation for the theme where the lack of communication and understanding with the mentally disabled can lead to dire and tragic
Lennie was not very smart and couldn't do much by himself. He had to be told what to do or he wouldn't do anything at all. He fits all the profiles for a retarded person. He doesn't have any self-control. When he starts to panic he gets out of control and even kills Curly's wife because she starts to scream. Lennie loves animals and can't stop talking about them. He always says that when they get their own place that he wants lots of rabbits, his favorite animal. To him George is like his father figure, since Lennie never really had any parents. He is easily amused and panics quickly.
During the beginning, Lennie is characterized as childish. He is very small minded. Steinbeck indirectly states that he has a mental disability. Readers notice this because of his child-like actions, specifically on page 3, “Lennie dipped his whole head under, hat and all, and then he sat up on the bank and his hat dripped down on his blue coat and ran down his back.” This disability forces George to sacrifice his freedom to help survive with his disability. George gets frustrated with Lennie’s playful personality easily, as a father might with his son. On page 11, George lets his anger out on Lennie. “I wisht I could put you in a cage with
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is about the friendship between George Milton and Lennie Small, who travel together due to the fact that Lennie suffered a childlike mental illness and someone needed to take care of him. Lennie only listens to his friend George, no matter what George may say. This novel shows characteristics of their true friendship and George's compassion towards his companion. George shows acts of love and kindness out of sympathy for Lennie, yet he also seems to show an unconscious effort to make up for Lennie’s mental impairment.
John Steinbeck wrote the play Of Mice and Men in 1937 (Steinbeck). It is a play about two ranch workers who do not have the best of luck. The two workers were named George and Lennie. George was a more small bodied man. His partner Lennie was a giant among average sized people. They are on the road going place to place working numerous jobs. Lennie has a learning disability. The two work hand and hand. George is there to keep Lennie out of trouble. Lennie in a way helps keep George together. Sometimes it gets difficult for the two but they always get through everything together. They both work hand and hand. George is the brains and Lennie is the muscle. Lennie is a very powerful man so he can do a lot of things normal men cannot do. George is Lennie’s only family or friend he’s all Lennie has in this world. In a way Lennie is all George has also. The two keep one another going throughout their long journey. They work together escape trouble together and keep each other pushing forward. In the end the only thing they have is each other. This story shows that no matter how different two people are they still can relate to each other. It also shows that no matter how independent one thinks he/she is someone can always help them with something (Steinbeck).
The author makes use of naturalism and presents Lennie as a human beast. Lennie possesses the body of a bear, but his actions are similar to those of a dog. He is able bodied but feeble minded. The combination of the preceding traits and his fondness of petting make him responsible for many murders. He has a nebulous and robust physical description. He possesses the mind of a child who requires supervision. George, the security of petting soft things, and a dream farm represent the meat and potatoes of his life. Lennie faces the mechanism of natural selection like any other animal.
Yet what most fail to see is that Of Mice and Men portrays both aspects of human life through the mutual friendship of two uncommon men, George and Lennie, the dream they both share, and the sudden calamity that befalls them. Relationships are an important part of life. Humans need relationships because we are dependent on each other to survive. Babies need their mothers to feed and nurse them, and friends need each other to support, comfort, sympathize, and understand them. The friendship between George and Lennie outlined the core of Of Mice and Men, and although it’s sometimes idealized and exaggerated throughout the novel, there is no question of its sincerity.
George’s relationship with Lennie has made him selfless; his conversations, with and with out Lennie, are generally revolving around Lennie, although in the case of their dream-ranch George seems to find fulfilment for himself as well. Due to these altruistic tendencies that he shows throughout the novel, a danger is bestowed upon George; he tends to care for Lennie far too much, and too little for himself. In occasional moments, he escapes his sympathy and compassion for Lennie, and realises the burden that he causes. This usually results in George taking his frustration out on Lennie, which can often harm his simple mind, leaving Lennie upset and forced to confess to his own uselessness, and George feeling guilty for what he has caused. We can learn very little about George through his actual conversations, which made it necessary for Steinbeck to focus the novel on him in particular, and let the reader gain an closer insight on him through his actions. Generally, he seems to be caring, intelligent and sensible, but is greatly worn by the constant attention Lennie requires. This illustrates a major theme in Of Mice and Men, the dangers that arise when one becomes involved in a dedicated relationship.
In my opinion, Lennie Small is the most interesting character in Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck does a very good job describing and characterizing Lennie's personality. Lennie's character is, indeed, quite unique. A large man with enormous strength, yet kind and childlike, he seems to find joy in simple life pleasures like petting a furry animal and making the water ripple. Lennie's greatest difficulty seems to be remembering; and it is the lack of the ability to remember that ultimately leads to his tragedy at the end of the book. In the novel, Steinbeck seems to reinforce Lennie's characteristics of strength, kindness, childlike manner, and somewhat animal-like personality. In this paper, I will focus on these characteristics.
The famed nurses study from Harvard found “Not having a close friend is as detrimental to your health as smoking.” Lennie and George’s friendship is necessary to keep the better for each other. Throughout the story, Lennie and George need each other and look out for one another no matter what. Lennie and George’s friendship and journey throughout the story symbolizes the struggles to achieve the American dream. Steinbeck, in the story Of Mice and Men, combines characterization and symbolism to prove friends do whats best for eachother.