In the poem, the speaker has accidentally turned up a mouse's nest. he pauses for a little rumination about how men and animals might seem different, but in the end they're all mortal. no matter how different "thinking men" and "unthinking animals" seem, everybody suffers and dies in the end But there is one difference. mice and men might both die, but only the men are aware of it. In the last verse of the poem, Burns' speaker says that the mouse is "blest" .It seems like Steinbeck is thinking of Lennie as the mouse, and George as the man who turns up its nest: life messes them both up, but at least Lennie doesn't have to remember any of it. Whatever happens to Lennie is over. He doesn't regret anything and he doesn't anticipate anything not