Of Mice and Men

Author: Billy Lau // Category:
“Of Mice and Men”, is a novella by John Steinbeck it is about two men, George and Lennie who are workers searching for a new life. They moved from one farm to another, looking for work to get money and buy their own farm. They moved to a new farm and find problems with Curley, a former boxer, and his wife. Lennie was born with a mental illness, which prevents George and himself from staying on one farm without causing problems. There are a lot of conflicts that occur in this book, but the central problem is self vs. self with Lennie. Lennie is a gentle giant who never knows what he is doing. He forgets everything George says, and messes everything up.

  George and Lennie are traveling to a new job at a ranch, and many problems arise with Lennie always getting in trouble. George and Lennie got kicked out of a ranch in the past and moves on to a new ranch. Lennie is always causing difficulty for George, so now George won’t let him speak, because then the other workers will think he is crazy. “He can talk if he wants to tell you anything.”  P 25 In this quote, George is talking back to Curley that Lennie can talk if he wanted to. Lennie can’t control himself and every time he is directed a question, he turns to George for assistance. This turns out to work, but Curley is now on the look out for Lennie

  Afterward, Curley does mess with Lennie and they get into a fight. Curley gets hurt badly and now everyone goes into town to find help. Lennie stays back with Crooks, the Negro, and they talk about life. Crooks brought up a point that Lennie gets frightened about. Crooks said what if George never comes back, what will you do. “George gonna come back,” Lennie reassured himself in a frightened voice. Maybe George come back already. . Maybe I better go see.” p73 Lennie is so dependent on George that he gets aggressive at one point on Crooks, because he thought Crooks was restricting George from coming back. Crooks backs down, and Lennie goes and checks if George is here.

  Finally, Lennie commits his ultimate crime. Lennie accidentally kills Curley’s wife. He remembers where George told him to hide if anything goes wrong. He goes to the spot and waits for George. While waiting for George he starts hallucinating. He thinks about everyone yelling at him. His aunt comes in his head and starts criticizing him. “I know,” said Lennie miserably. I tried, Aunt Clara, ma’am. I tried and tried.” p 101 This quote told me that he did so many bad things that he tried not to do. He must have failed miserably on all of his attempts. After, George comes and shoots him with a gun Lennie stole. George shot him to end all his problems and to not let Lennie get hurt by Curley.

The central conflict of Mice and Men is Character vs. Self, because Lennie was born with mental problems, therefore his life will become harder and harder for him with George and everyone around him. Problems occur around Lennie is because he doesn’t know his own strength and because he gets so scared he doesn’t know what to do. Lennie needs to be supervised by George, but that leads to George having to carry Lennie’s problems along. George makes sacrifices for Lennie, because he cares and he knows that Lennie needs help internally. George is a good partner to be with because he shows hope for Lennie and tells him that they together are different than any other migrant worker. But because Lennie causes a bunch of chaos he dies thinking of him and George on the farm tending rabbits and having the best time of their lives.

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