Examples Of Foreshadowing In Of Mice And Men

Often times, many literary texts show or display hidden meanings or foreshadow many, things that will either affect the main character negatively or positively. People like John Steinbeck in his Mice and Men are able to slowly weave a secret message into a story through the use of almost randomly placed occurences.In this case, the death of Candy’s dog ended up foreshadowing the conflict and inevitable death of Lennie Small. Surprising the reader with how lost usefulness and mercy gave a new meaning to the deaths of Lennie Small and Candy’s dog. After being introduced to the farm workers, an old man by the name of Candy gets brought in. An older man, with a permanently injured hand, his support, is a dog, an ancient dog that could do nothing

As the dog lost its serviceability, it lived on with age and suffered, thus had to be put down in order to prevent it from suffering any longer. Contrary to this, Lennie was one of the most useful members of the farm. His strength making it easy to do certain things, his mentality however, was something else, like that of an ignorant, innocent child. Even when a girl screamed, Lennie became “scared all he can think to do is jus’ hold on.” (Steinbeck, 41) Unbeknownst to Lennie and George, his natural innocence and ignorance, will whittle down his usefulness until nothing's left. And although he had strength that could help everyone on the farm. The one time he used his strength, it left Curley “flopping like a fish on a line.” (Steinbeck, 63) So although he could help others by using his strength, his intelligence left him like a person who couldn’t control himself. Even after Curley was incapacitated, Lennie still “held on to the closed fist.” (Steinbeck, 63) A giant of a man with the intellect of a child has a limit to his usefulness. However what he has fades away when he ends up meeting Curley’s Wife. Once she let him stroke her hair, Lennie’s “fingers closed on her hair and hung on.” (Steinbeck, 91) Then with one mighty shake, “she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck.” (Steinbeck, 91) As a result, whatever convenience Lennie had had, became lost. He ran away, and hid. Once the other ranch hands discovered his folly, they chased him down with George running ahead. After laying out the dreams that he, Candy and lennie would never achieve because of Lennie’s vanished usefulness, 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