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Lennie's characteristics in mice and men
Innocence in american literature
Lennie's characteristics in mice and men
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When someone is described as “innocent”, people tend to think of them as harmless, kind, and naive. While this is true for the majority of people described this way, Lennie’s character, in the story Of Mice and Men, portrays the opposite of this stereotype. Lennie’s innocence ends up getting him into major trouble with himself and others. In the novella Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck exemplifies through the characterization of Lennie how innocence can get one into dangers that could possibly cost them their life.
Lennie’s innocent, carefree character causes Lennie many conflicts, whether it be internal or external. As Lennie has a mental disability of sorts, his true character is often masked by his actions. Being a simple minded person,
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he is loyal to George. He always thinks of George before himself and is scared that if he does a bad thing, George will abandon him. An instance of his fear of abandonment is when George and Lennie were sitting around the fire, Lennie insisted he wanted ketchup on his beans, but George didn’t have any. George bursted open with anger, exclaiming, “‘Well, we ain’t got any… Whatever we ain’t got, that’s what you want… If I was alone I could live so easy.’” (Steinbeck 11) Lennie responded, saying, “‘I was only foolin’, George. I don’t want no ketchup. I wouldn’t eat no ketchup if it was right here beside me… I’d leave it all for you. You could cover your beans with it and I’d touch none of it.’”(12) Lennie revealed that he puts George before himself. He also demonstrated this quality when he said, “If you don’t want me I can go off in the hills and find a cave. I can go away any time.’”(12) Steinbeck describes Lennie as a harmless, naive man who relies on George to keep him out of danger. Lennie’s innocence at this point in the story does not hurt himself or anyone around him, it is just a trait of his. Despite the harmless, careful person Lennie is described as in the first few chapters, Lennie’s true character is soon revealed and we find out that his attribute of innocence turns out to be one that hurts him.
For example, as Curley is yelling at the men, Lennie starts to smile, but he is actually thinking about how he will get to tend the rabbits and the ranch him and George will own. Curley takes Lennie’s facial expression as an insult and picks a fight with him. Lennie is scared to stand up for himself until George says, “‘Get ’im Lennie!’ The next minute Curley was flopping like a fish on a line, and his closed fist was lost in Lennie’s hand.”(63) Lennie’s innocence caused him not to stand up for himself, but when he did, he soon saw that he had taken it too far. Another example of Lennie’s cluelessness and innocence is when Curley’s wife comes in and starts talking to him about her life story. She asks him to feel her hair and all of a sudden he grabs her and won’t let go. Curley’s wife shouts, “‘Look out, now, you’ll muss it.’ And then she cried angrily, ‘You stop it now!’ She flopped like a fish…’” (91)This time Lennie went too far and killed Curley’s wife. Lennie’s innocence protects merely himself, however not the people around him. When Curley finds out that Lennie is the culprit, he wants him killed. Curley exclaims,“‘I'm gonna get him. I'm going for my shotgun. I'll kill the big son-of-a- myself. I'll shoot 'im in the guts. Come on, you guys.’”(96) George makes
the decision to kill Lennie, when “he raised the gun and steadied it, and brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head… He pulled the trigger.” (106) George knew if he didn’t shoot Lennie then Curley would, and he thought it would be better if someone close to Lennie did it out of good intention. Lennie’s actions prove his innocence to be a bad thing because they end up getting him killed. As John Steinbeck demonstrates in the novella Of Mice and Men, innocence is not always a good thing, due to what happened to Lennie. Lennie’s personality portrays him as a harmless person who is just looking to stay out of trouble, however, his actions depict him to be a trouble maker that ends up paying for his actions with his life.
Lennie Small, a mentally impaired man, is first introduced to us traveling with George. George, however, is not related to Lennie. Lennie travels with George because no one else understands him like he does. Lennie says, “Because…because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you…” (Steinbeck 14). Lennie believes if George ever left him that he could live in a cave by himself and not bother anyone again (Steinbeck 12). Lennie realizes he would be alone without George, but he never has known anyone else to depend on but George, and from that, they have a bond, a friendship. This shows Lennie’s need for his relationship with George.
In Of Mice and Men the character Lennie is big and has a diminished mental capacity. Lennie is s...
Lennie is broken and incomplete in many ways. He has a mental disability which differentiates him from the others. He depends on George for everything and cannot do things on his own even though he is a grown man.
One of Lennie's many traits is his forgetfulness. He easily forgets what he is supposed to do, but he somehow never forgets what he is told. An example of how Lennie is forgetful is when he has the mice in his pocket and when he went to pet them they bit his finger. “Lennie picked up the dead mouse and looked at with a sad face. When they bit him he pinched them, and by doing that he crushed their heads” (page 5) . This is important because he knew that if he squeezed their heads they would die, but since he is forgetful, he squeezed anyway. Another example of how Lennie is forgetful is when he grabbed Curley's hand and crushed it. “ Curley’s fist was swinging when Lennie reached for it. Lennie squeezed on until George came running in shouting ‘let go’. The next moment Curley was on the ground wailing while he held his crushed hand” (page 64). This event is important because Lennie had held on, not knowing what to do next, until George told him what to do. A final exampl...
Lennie dreams of living on a wide open ranch with George where he tends to the fluffy little rabbits he loves so much. Nevertheless, Lennie sadly never reaches his ultimate goal as his flaw finally becomes his fatal flaw. Lennie kills Curley 's wife by shaking her so hard that her neck breaks. He does not kill her on purpose but Lennie does not know his own strength. He is only shaking her like that because he wants her to stop yelling.
Lennie is depicted in a very childlike manner throughout Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Accordingly, he acts in a manner that is persistent with a child in that his motivations precisely lead to his actions. He does not act in a pure sense of dishonesty, reflective of the purity that is peculiar to someone who is like a kid at heart.
Crooks, Curley’s wife, and most defiantly Lennie are the outcasts on the ranch. The novel presents Lennie as a mentally challenged, but an unusually strong worker who travels with his friend George. George takes care of Lennie as if he was his own child and Lennie cares for George the same way. “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you” (14). Lennie describes how he cares for George although he honestly just messes everything up for George. Lennie has the mind of a child and does not understand how to act and be an adult. Lennie continues to pet dead mice, feel shiny and smooth objects, and not know how to interact with other people. From time to time, George continues to care and try to make improvements with Lennie, but it just does not happen. Lennie continues to have the mind of a child and can never distinguish the different between right and wrong. Throughout the novel; from being a mentally challenged; tall, muscular man; Lennie is most definitely an outcast in the story Of Mice and Men.
Due to child like qualities, Lennie is a person which would be easy prey and a vulnerable person. Lennie is a vulnerable person who is quite dumb. His has an obsession for touching soft thing and this will often lead him in to trouble. But poor Lennie is an innocent person who means no harm to anybody. When he and Curley get into a fight Lennie is too shocked to do any thing. He tries to be innocent but, when told to by George grabs Curley’s fist and crushes it. George is Lennie’s best friend and Lennie does every thing he tells him to do as demonstrated in the fight with “But you tol...
Since the beginning of the book, Steinbeck characterizes Lennie as a man who sees the world through the perspective of a child, as if it is a dream. Lennie is a big guy, but he acts like a baby. In the beginning of the story, after George threw the dead mouse Lennie was petting, Lennie was “…‘Blubberin’ like a baby!” (9). This juvenile action demonstrates Lennie’s immaturity and childish
As aforementioned they lived in the Great Depression a time where achieving the American Dream was almost impossible to do, especially with all the farms being lost in Oklahoma. Most of the character's perspectives of Lennie was that he was most simply a passive aggressive retard. Later in the novel the reader notices that he is incredible strong which serves to positive and negative effects in the story. Also, his thinking pattern is rather awkward or odd for someone of his age because what keeps him concentrated is this depiction of a farm where they will ¨tend the rabbits..build up a fire in the stove¨ (Steinbeck 14) which makes him mentally ill. When something is said to him about animals, he would instantly recognise with this desire, but for everything else, he is pretty much a useless man but other people who were willing to listen like Slim and Crooks who get to know him understood that he is if anything vulnerable which is what many characters were even
Since Lennie's mind works like a child's, due to his handicap, the other men did not treat him as an equal. Ther...
While George is away, Lennie does something very bad, he kills Curley’s wife along with his dog; both on accident. This event causes Lennie to run away and Curley to go after him in anger to kill him. “‘All right, you guys," he said. "The nigger's got a shotgun. You take it, Carlson. When you see 'um, don't give 'im no chance. Shoot for his guts. That'll double 'im over’”(48). In the quote, it shows that Curley has no compassion or empathy. He does not show empathy towards neither his wife or Lennie and his actions. Instead, he says he is going to kill him in a painful, long way. This whole quote says so much about Curley’s character, it shows he has a poor character and bad morals; unlike George. Curley’s characterization reveals a lot about his character and how he is ruthless and doesn’t care for others not even his deceased wife. George later kills Lennie out of compassion because he is better off killed peacefully than by what is to come, Curley and his painful death. “Lennie begged, "Le's do it now. Le's get that place now." "Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta." And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie's head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he
To begin, Lennie has this big dream of George and him living on their own land, being their own bosses, and tending to his own rabbits. Lennie’s major obstacle in achieving his dream is that he is slower than most people for his age. Lennie acts like a child making George the responsible adult. Lennie also listens to whatever George says because Lennie looks up to George almost like he is his brother. Lennie also has a tendency to forget what he is told:
In the novel, Lennie faces the adversity in explaining himself to the rest of the world. Thus ,Lennie’s adversity is his mental illness which he is continuously throughout the book trying to overcome.Since ,he is mentally challenged, most people, even George intermittently, underestimates his intelligence and logic skills. At the ranch in Soledad,...
George taking care of Lennie affects his life in many ways, for the better and for the worst. Lennie's memory effects his actions because he repeats some things that he forgets that he has done in the past. Lennie’s disability is misinterpreted by others because they see him as more of a burden than a good addition to society, because of his mental disability. But other people may not think about his disability like that, they might think he’s crazy in general. Lennie’s disability affects the way he thinks because it changes what he believes, what things cause him to worry, and what things cause him to