Symbols In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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

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