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Symbols In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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Of Mice and Men is a novella by John Steinbeck. The book is about two farmers named George Milton and Lennie Small, who hope to gather enough money to buy an acre of land and work for themselves instead of working for someone on a farm. Lennie hopes that he will be able to own rabbits to pet. However, Lennie will end up killing someone’s wife, this will lead to his death as he is eventually found and killed by George. Steinbeck uses Lennie’s dreams and relationships to show different themes involving the American Dream and the nature of humans in a modern society. Steinbeck uses Lennie’s dreams about rabbits to show the dangers of the American Dream. Despite being one of the main characters Lennie remains largely static throughout the story …show more content…

Despite wanting to harm anything and just pet animals, Lennie ends up killing everything he pets. For example, he kills a puppy due to stroking the puppy too hard. The book describes it as a “dead little puppy that lay in front of him” (85). The fate of the puppy mirrors the fate of every other animal that passes Lennie’s path, from mice to humans they all die. Despite all his best attempts, Lennie shows how humanity is inherently violent. Despite man’s best attempts to hide things like lust or violence the animal in them will soon come out. Lennie is a perfect example of this. He wants to pet all the animals he finds, but the animal in him comes out and kills the animal. In contrast, Lennie’s partner George represents a different aspect of humanity. George constantly tells Lennie what to do throughout the book. George tells Lennie to stay away from Curley’s wife. He tells Lennie, “well you keep away from her, ’cause she’s a rat trap if I ever seen one” (32). George represents the voice of reason, the brain that orders the human body and tells it what to do. The two quotes relate because while in the first quote, Lennie represents an animal like beast, George represents the voice telling him what to do. In this case, George tells Lennie to stay away and not do anything to Curley’s wife. However, Lennie cannot stay away from his animal instincts and ends up killing Curley’s

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Chapter 5 of John Steinback’s book, Of Mice and Men, vividly depicts Lennie immersing in a world of anger, sorrow, and worry after he tragically killed a little puppy. Lennie strategically employs passive voice to mask his responsibility for the dead puppy and his word choice shows his ambivalence towards the puppy. It’s evident that Lennie goes through a spectrum of emotions. Chapter 5 starts out with Lennie mournfully “[Stroking the dog] clear from one end to the other” (85).

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The problem with this is that Lennie is always getting in trouble because he loves petting soft things, but he would always end up hurting what he was petting or possible killing it. Lennie ends up killing a puppy that one of the ranch workers was going to let him have and he is scared George will be mad at him, when Curley’s wife, who is the wife of the ranch owner’s son, tries to comfort

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304 Words | 2 Pages

This quote tells us that Curley would kill Lennie and shoot him in the guts. It tells us that Curley wants him to suffer. George killing Lennie was the right choice

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561 Words | 3 Pages

Lennie constantly fears that his actions will anger George, who will then punish him by taking away his rabbit-managing privileges. During the debacle with Curley's wife, he says “‘George gonna say I done a bad thing. He gonna ain’t gonna me tend no rabbits’”(91). Lennie represents innocence and

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Lennie is Autistic which makes it difficult for him to understand social communication and interaction. He also has poor self-awareness making him not know his own strength, because of that at the start he kills a mouse by petting it too hard, when the puppy bit him he smacked the dog too hard, and Curley's wife, Lennie went to touch hair because it was soft, but it frightened her causing Lennie to become scared when she started screaming. Even though Lennie didn’t know what he was doing and didn’t mean to do it, it would probably happen again putting Lennie and others in danger.

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701 Words | 3 Pages

Of Mice and Men is a novella that was written by John Stienbeck, which follows two men, George and Lennie, who have been forced out of town and are in search of work. George acts as a caretaker for Lennie, who is portrayed as mentally disabled. Throughout the story, George struggles with internal conflict; Lennie is a constant reminder of a better life that awaits him if he didn't have the burden of caring for him. Lennie has sensory issues, which enables him to start harming small animals, which eventually progresses to him killing Curley's wife after touching her hair. George finds out that Curley's wife is dead and “understands what he needs to do.”

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566 Words | 3 Pages

At the beginning of the novel he accidently kills a mouse, and then a puppy, and ultimately Curley’s wife. As he said, “I can still tend the rabbits, George?... I didn't mean no harm, George.” (65), he may have not meant to harm anything or anyone but he did not understand or accept the severity of his actions, instead he was concerned about the tending of his future rabbits. Lennie’s actions solidified Steinbeck’s stance on the true nature of mankind through his diction.

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George and Lennie share an unbreakable bond, despite their contrasting appearances and personalities with George being “small and quick”, while Lennie is “a huge man, shapeless of face, with large pale eyes and sloping shoulders” (Steinbeck 2). Even though they are so different, their personalities complement each other, and their undying friendship gives them hope and companionship in their desperate situations as migrant workers. Furthermore, throughout the novel, it is apparent that George takes care of Lennie through every obstacle he finds himself in, even though he is incapable of doing the same for George. Steinbeck also characterizes Lennie as innocent and animalistic to connect him to nature. He compares Lennie to animals in the barn describing the way he drinks water as, “snorting into the water like a horse”, and saying he “dabbled his big paw in the water” (Steinbeck 4-5).

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Although Lennie loves mice, he is inept at handling feeble creatures. George notices the mouse and addresses it by saying that: “‘That mouse ain’t fresh, Lennie...you’ve broke it pettin’ it’” (Steinbeck 9). The euphemism that George uses for death suggests that the mouse’ death was not intentional, nor sadistic. Lennie roots his intentions in kindness, but his strength overpowers this emotion.

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This trait of Lennie 's affects the story in a bad way because since he likes to pet things so much, he pets them too much that he kills them on accident. Lennie has done so much to ruin his world in the book. When Lennie gets to a new place to live, he accidently kills mice, a puppy, and a person, but says he 's sorry which makes him seem sympathetic. Steinbeck was successful at making Lennie sympathetic because he cares about everything and will always be there for George but other characters keep sizing up to him and he doesn’t know

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1801 Words | 8 Pages

The initial paragraphs of John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men introduces Lennie and George, two men living on the road, in search of a job. Both men have dreams of their own and depend on each other in order to achieve them. George takes care of Lennie, who is mentally incapable, while Lennie provides company to George. These men wander around hoping to achieve the American Dream. They continue to go after it, without realizing that they will never be able to obtain it.

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737 Words | 3 Pages

In this literary novella, Steinbeck digs into the idea of the nature of dreams and that each man must make sacrifices or battle some other outside force to make a dream come true. This follows with the theme that humans give meaning to their life and future by creating dreams. George and Lennie both have vast dreams that influence them in different

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1163 Words | 5 Pages

However, the way in which Steinbeck implements this “colorful language” is key to understanding why he used it at all. Ordinarily, an author would describe a character by their physical human traits rather than accentuating animal-like characteristics, which is how Steinbeck depicts Lennie. As a result of the utilization of Lennie’s animal-like depiction, Steinbeck subliminally dehumanizes Lennie in the reader's mind and justifies the death of animals at the hands of their masters. Ultimately, in Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck dehumanizes Lennie to the reader through the use of animal imagery, in order to allow the reader to justify Lennie’s death at the hands of his best friend, George as a warranted act of

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1469 Words | 6 Pages

This relates back to naturalism, because Lennie gets himself into a situation that he cannot control. He does not understand that he has to be very careful with the puppy because it is so small, and he does not know his own strength. “What is clear is that Lennie’s body wins out over his mind repeatedly,- in the end with tragic consequences”(Keener 1215). Lennie is very kind- hearted, and never wants to hurt anyone. This quote explains that Lennie’s strength wins over his intentions.

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With the many outsourcing companies or businesses looking for online help, many online jobs are now available over the internet. Even if you are an average person, you can find your place in the online business world for as long as you possess the right attitude, drive, and passion. If you can read, write and understand instruction in English and possess a skill and willing to learn some other skills, you can be able to choose from the many different options available on the internet. Many online employers are in need of web designers, data entry persons, customer support, transcriptionist, programmers, article writers, bloggers, SEO, affiliate marketers and so many more.

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