Of Mice and Men Literature Analysis

General

1.       Two farm hands, Lennie and George, start the story at a pond discussing the future. They have it all planned out and are about to meet a new employer. Lennie is not only slow, but extremely powerful. This combination has got them in trouble in the past so it makes George weary of the new job. As they are hired on a new farm they learn about the others, including a woman married to Curly who causes mischief with the men on the farm. Later on Lennie accidentally kills a puppy he was playing with, like he kills every small animal he touches, and tries to cover it up. Curly’s wife comes into the barn and sees Lennie hiding the dead puppy and compares her hair to the softness of the dead animal’s fur. She encourages Lenny to touch it, he’s too rough, and she screams. Lennie shakes her and accidentally snaps her fragile neck. He leaves the ranch for the pond at the beginning of the story and waits there. George finds the dead woman and puppy and runs off to the pond as well with a head start on the others who now want to lynch Lennie. George arrives at the pond where Lennie is waiting, tells him again about the farm they’ll buy together and the rabbits, and shoots Lennie in the back of the head.

2.       The theme of Of Mice and Men is that friendship isn’t about equality, but more about what the other person brings to our lives. George may always have to take care of Lennie, but without him George wouldn’t be the person he is today. Lennie brings an innocence and hope to George that he wouldn’t be able to obtain on his own, and without George to look after him Lennie wouldn’t be able to function properly in normal society.

3.       John Steinbeck’s tone throughout the story is sad. There is a lot of death and loneliness in the author’s writing that is created through the characters and their lives with one another.  Crooks, the only black man on the ranch never has anyone who cares about him. Lennie, a main character, gets shot in the back of the head. Innocence in the form of a grown man kills innocence in living things.

4.       Foreshadowing- "I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog." Candy tells George this towards the middle of the book.

Conflict- Internal conflict between the love of a friend and what’s best for them within George.

Figurative Language- "Lennie covered his face with huge paws and bleated with terror." Connecting two things that don’t at first seem related like Lennie’s hands and huge paws.

Motif- Lennie’s attraction to soft animals and just soft objects in general is a reoccurring concept throughout the story.

Setting- A placement of the characters that helps guide their actions and the storyline. In Of Mice and Men the setting is a farm.

Irony- It’s ironic that Lennie is the gentlest character in the story but seems the most dangerous. He is constantly, yet accidentally, killing things with his strength but doesn’t by any means want to or wish harm upon anything or anyone else.

Symbol- The mice that Lennie crushes are symbolic of the fragility of life as well as of Lennie himself

Point of View- 3^rd person omniscient.

Characterization

1.       Crooks is directly described as the only black man on the farm as well as being a cripple. Through his diction and the way he describes his existence, Crook becomes less a crippled black man and more a lonely soul who attempts to cover up his pain with a crude disposition in any new encounter. Curly’s wife is introduced to the reader as a trouble maker and somewhat of a harlot.  As the story progresses however, the author uses her conversations with Crooks and Lennie to portray a woman so far forgotten by her husband and so lonely as to seek the company of anyone who looks her way. She’s no longer this trouble making, horrible wife in the readers’ eyes, but a woman misunderstood and forgone by society.

2.       Steinbeck uses different diction with different characters in the story to show social belonging. Lennie and Crooks being the best examples of this change in diction. Lennie talks as a mentally challenged person would and Crooks’ diction reflects that of an uneducated black man during that time period. As for syntax I didn’t notice much change when the author focused on character, his writing structurally didn’t seem to alter as a result of a switch from scenery to character description.

3.       The protagonist, George, is a rather static character. His views of the world and others don’t alter much and he pretty much stays the same guy all the way to the end. However, he is a round character and has his different sides; the outward cynic and the internal softy.

4.       This was definitely a real person story. I came away from the reading filled with a palpable feeling of loss and sadness.  The death of Lennie is especially difficult because the reader feels the way George does…Lennie didn’t mean to hurt anyone.