Comparing John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

The novel Of Mice and Men is a novella that was published in 1937, written by author John Steinbeck. The novel depicts the story of two migrant ranch workers, George and Lennie, who move place to place in search of work during the Great Depression. Lennie had a dream of owning their own farm and getting to tend to and pet rabbits. The pair had to flee Weed, where Lennie was accused of trying to rape a woman after touching her dress. After they are hired at a farm, many of the ranch hands start to dislike Lennie because he is not like other people, and has something wrong with him. Curley, a man with a horribly bad attitude and Napoleon complex, does not take liking to Lennie one bit. Curley’s wife poses a problem to Lennie and George staying

Lennie ends up in the barn talking to Curley’s wife and accidentally snaps her neck, killing her. George decides that it would be better to kill Lennie himself, rather than let the ranch hands and Curley get to him first. George ends up killing Lennie by shooting him in the back of the head near a spot that George and Lennie had found for themselves before starting work at the ranch. The movie and novella both have the same plot, but there are various differences between how the director and author portray the story in the two. The movie is a lot more emotional because of the flashback of Lennie and George. The flashback shows what looks to be the pair working in a field throwing a bag of something on a truck. Personally, I feel like this flashback at the end leaves a kind of sadness and more emotional ending to the movie, it leaves a void in your heart because you see how close the duo were. George cared tremendously about Lennie, and you can only imagine how hard it was to execute his own friend. The book just closes with dialogue right after Lennie is killed, which doesn’t leave us with

“Now what the hell do you suppose is eatin’ them two guys?” is the line that ends the novella. This line is basically letting the readers know that Carlson had no sympathy whatsoever towards what had happened with George and Lennie. Carlson just believes that George killed Lennie in retaliation for Curley’s wife. George had a lot of guilt because he couldn’t protect Lennie from Curley’s wife, and couldn’t protect Curley’s wife from Lennie not knowing any better. George also had a lot of guilt because he knew that he should have done something about Lennie in Weed after touching that woman, and he didn’t. He allowed his best friend to choose his own fate because he did not look out for him better. I personally enjoyed the ending of the movie over the novella. The movie was more personal, and made the watchers feel a sadness you could not get from just reading the novella. It’s just more meaningful including the scene which the flashback of George and Lennie. The movie also portrays a sense of remorse and regret much better than the