What’s in it for me? Hear the poignant tale of Lennie and George – one of literature’s great friendships.
One day, when the Scottish poet and farmer Robert Burns was out in the field, he found he’d destroyed a mouse’s nest with his plough. His outpouring of sympathy for the defenseless little creature – his poem “To a Mouse” – contains these famous lines:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Or, in more familiar language, even the best of plans will often go wrong and cause us grief and pain.
This is where John Steinbeck found the title for his 1937 novella Of Mice and Men – a brief but profoundly moving book that’s long been a cornerstone of American literature.
Burns’s poem casts a long shadow over Steinbeck’s book – not only because the schemes of its two main characters, Lennie and George, are doomed to go awry, but also because of a stranger theme: inadvertent violence. Burns upended the mouse’s life by brute force – but completely by accident. As you’ll see in this Blink, Of Mice and Men repeatedly asks what happens when two unequal forces collide.
It’s set during the Great Depression – around the same time it was written – in rural California. Lennie and George, like many workers at the time, travel from place to place, eking out a living doing odd jobs on ranches and dreaming of a better life.
Of Mice and Men is one of Steinbeck’s best known works, alongside The Grapes of Wrath, which followed two years later in 1939, and East of Eden, published in 1952. It’s a subtly experimental novel which uses a lot of dialog – Steinbeck’s conception was that it could also be performed as a play, as it often has been.
George and Lennie
When we meet Lennie Small and George Milton, they’re stumbling, exhausted, into a beautiful, tranquil clearing in the California countryside – causing the rabbits and herons to make themselves scarce. There, near the Gabilan mountains and the Salinas river, among the willow and sycamore trees, they find a green pool.
And the first thing Lennie does is plunge his head straight into the pool and take huge, thirsty gulps of unclean water. Belying his last name, Lennie is an enormous man, a little like a bear.
George – the opposite, small and wiry – cautions his companion that he’ll make himself sick again.
It also turns out that Lennie’s been carrying a dead mouse so he can stroke it – not for the first time. He swears he didn’t kill it – he just found it dead – but George scolds him and hurls it into the undergrowth.
Straight away, it’s clear that Lennie has a serious mental disability. As well as routinely putting his health at risk, he struggles to remember almost anything – even the fact that they’re traveling to a ranch to get work. Lennie is hopelessly reliant on George, whose harsh tone toward him is borne of a deep affection.
They’re exhausted because they’ve had to walk miles – a bus was meant to take them all the way to the ranch, but it dropped them off in the wrong place. George decides they’ll sleep in the clearing and go to the ranch in the morning.
They bicker some more – Lennie wants ketchup with his beans, but they don’t have any. To make peace, George tells Lennie his favorite story: the one about the farm the two of them will live on one day, once they’ve saved up the money. They’ll grow their own food and keep animals – and Lennie will feed the rabbits. He loves hearing about the rabbits.
If they run into trouble again, George says, Lennie should come back to this place and hide. George will find him here.
ANALYSIS
Of Mice and Men is quick to establish friendship as a theme – George and Lennie are obviously deeply committed to each other despite their poverty and Lennie’s disability. But the theme is more than friendship – it’s dependency. It’s clear that Lennie would be lost without his quick-witted companion. George, too, seems dependent on Lennie for his company and affection – not to mention the fact that Lennie’s strength makes him an excellent worker.
Other aspects of dependency already have a darker hue. Think of those imaginary rabbits, and their dependency on lumbering, forgetful Lennie; think of that little mouse, which Lennie may well have killed after all. And Lennie makes himself dependent on that pool of mossy water too – another disturbing reminder of the fragility of life.
The ranch
At the ranch, George and Lennie meet a host of new companions. Candy, first of all, is an old handyman with only one hand – and a dog that seems even older than his master. Candy’s worried he’s outlasting his usefulness on the ranch; when he overhears George telling Lennie about their dream of owning a farm, he wants in. He offers them his life savings so he can have a place there too. With that money, they’d almost have enough to buy a farm – so George says yes.
The stable hand is called Crooks, on account of his crooked back. He’s Black, which isolates him on the ranch – he proudly keeps to his own quarters. He’s scornful of Lennie, George, and Candy’s dream to own property – that’s what everyone says, he tells them, and they never do. But when he hears they almost have enough money, he wants in too.
Slim is a mule driver and a natural leader among the workers – a calmly authoritative and respectful figure as well as a gifted worker. He understands that Lennie and George share a rare and special bond.
Then there’s Curley – a very different sort of authority figure. Small in stature and quick to a fight, he’s the boss’s son and has all the entitlement that goes with it. He’s newly married and is forever bursting into the bunkhouse to ask the ranchers if they’ve seen his wife, who keeps going missing. On one occasion, Lennie looks at him the “wrong” way so Curley picks a fight. Lennie tries not to get involved, but when Curley attacks, George lets him retaliate. He crushes Curley’s fist completely, causing permanent damage.
Curley’s wife makes the odd appearance there as well. Seductively dressed, she has quickly gained a reputation as trouble among the workers; they all try to avoid her for fear of angering Curley. She realizes it’s Lennie who’s crushed her husband’s hand – and likes him for it.
Slim’s dog has just given birth to a litter – which has several consequences. First, it causes Carlson, another worker, to insist on putting Candy’s ancient dog out of its misery – he argues that Candy can get a puppy to replace it. And second, it excites Lennie to no end. Slim agrees that Lennie can have one of the puppies – eventually. But even now, when they’re less than a day old, Lennie insists on playing with them.
While Lennie is off with the puppies, George confides in Slim. He explains that he knew Lennie growing up, and started caring for him when his Aunt Clara died. George used to make fun of Lennie a little – but one time, a prank almost got Lennie killed because he followed George’s instructions so literally. That’s when George realized just how defenseless he was.
George also explains what happened at the last place they worked, up in a place called Weed. Lennie had laid eyes on a girl in a red dress – and all he wanted to do was touch the dress, just like he loved to stroke mice or puppies. But the girl screamed in panic. This made Lennie panic, so he grabbed on tighter. Everybody thought he’d raped her – and they had to run off.
That’s when Lennie arrives, glowing with excitement. He’s doing a very poor job of pretending he’s not carrying one of the puppies with him. George tells him it’ll die being apart from its mother when it’s less than a day old, and orders him to take it right back.
ANALYSIS
Of course, Lennie imagines a place for his puppy on the farm that he and George dream of. One of the novel’s key themes is hope – or, perhaps, the futility of it.
As soon as Candy hears about the two companions’ plan, he wants in. And it’s telling that while Crooks is cynical at first, as soon as the slightest hint of possibility enters the picture he pitches in as well – just in case.
Some people cite Of Mice and Men as an example of social realism – and it’s certainly true that it paints a moving and at times authentic picture of life for the itinerant working class in the America of Steinbeck’s day. But that’s not the whole picture. It’s an allegorical work as well, in which the characters represent something way beyond the specifics of the setting. The dream of owning a farm, for instance, is just one humble way of expressing the American dream. What makes the book so poignant is how far away that dream seems, even when the characters are convinced otherwise.
Another key theme is strength, or power. Lennie, of course, has no idea about his own strength. This routinely gets the better of him, whether it’s through killing mice, harming puppies, or scaring women in dresses. Yet in another way, he’s utterly weak – you could even say mouselike himself – through his complete dependency on the superior intellect of his protector, George.
Power, or its absence, affects all the other characters too – from the feeble, one-handed Candy who’s afraid he’s becoming as useless as his dog, which is killed out of mercy, to the hotheaded Curley, whose desire to prove his own strength leads to Lennie crushing his hand.
And what about the novel’s only female character? As we’ll see in the final section, she’s also trying to assert her own agency. But things don’t quite work out as planned.
Curley’s wife
As the story reaches its climax, all the workers are playing horseshoes nearby – except for Lennie, who’s alone in the barn, with a puppy in his hands. It’s dead.
Lennie’s talking to the puppy, devastated, still giving it a few of those mighty strokes. He’s vacillating between sorrow and anger – if only you hadn’t gone and died, he shouts, hurling it across the barn before going over to pick it up again. Above all, Lennie’s worried this means George won’t let him tend their future rabbits anymore.
Curley’s wife comes over.
Lennie knows he’s not supposed to talk to her – but she’s kind and warm, and confides in him that she’s lonely. Curley is so possessive that she’s not allowed to talk to anyone else. She sees the dead puppy and comforts Lennie as best she can. It doesn’t matter, she says – he can just get another one somewhere.
Curley’s wife gets reflective, and tells Lennie about her crushed dream of being an actress. He tells her all about the farm.
Lennie explains his problem: He just likes to pet things that feel nice. Not just little animals, but also soft materials like silk or velvet.
Curley’s wife says she knows what he means. Maybe he’d like to feel her hair, she says – and gently guides his hand to her head.
He strokes her hair – and then strokes harder, and she tells him to let go. He panics. He begs her not to get mad. Lennie puts one of his huge hands over her face, and she struggles and struggles. He moves his hand and she screams – so he shakes her hard. And suddenly, she goes completely limp.
Lennie is in shock, but he remembers what he has to do now. He makes his way back to the clearing in the forest and hides.
After a long time and a lot of commotion back at the ranch, George finds him there. Everyone else is out looking for Lennie as well – Curley wants him dead, of course. In the commotion, George has got hold of a gun.
Lennie is worried George’ll be mad – but he isn’t. He’s calm and understanding and quiet, and they sit down together.
George talks to Lennie just like he always does. He explains how they’re like family – all the other workers are alone, but they’ve got each other to rely on. And then they get to talking about the farm again.
George tells Lennie to take his hat off and look straight out across the river, so he can really picture the farm in his mind. He tells him how they’ll keep a cow and some chickens, and grow alfalfa grass for the rabbits – the rabbits that Lennie can tend.
And then, softly, George moves the hand holding the gun to just behind Lennie’s head. He steadies his shaking hand – and shoots.
The others arrive and assume George killed Lennie in self-defense. Only Slim seems to understand what’s happened. He helps George up and leads him away for a drink, as the others uncomprehendingly look on.
ANALYSIS
It’s a powerful, devastating conclusion – although hardly a surprise. The fate of that poor puppy is clear from the start. And knowing about the previous instance Lennie and George are fleeing from – when Lennie accidentally assaulted the girl in the red dress – means the fate of Curley’s wife is no shock either.
Steinbeck even prepares us for George’s killing of Lennie. You could call it the second mercy killing in the book – Candy’s elderly dog was the first. Of Mice and Men is a novel in which the fragility of life is front and center at all times. In a sense, both Lennie and Candy’s dog are crushed by more powerful forces, just like the mouse and the dog and Curley’s wife. There was no way back for Lennie after he’d killed someone.
It’s striking that the end of the story takes place in the same tranquil spot where it started. This paradisial setting is shattered by the arrival of the men – as lumbering and thoughtless and unwittingly destructive to the landscape around them as Lennie was to all those little animals.
Final Summary
Of Mice and Men is the story of the close friendship between Lennie Small and George Milton. Lennie is a huge and absurdly strong man with a severe mental disability, and he’s dependent on George in almost every way. Despite his size, he loves to pet small creatures like mice and puppies – which seldom survive his uncontrolled force. George couldn’t be a greater contrast – he’s short and quick-witted, although he also leans on Lennie for companionship.
The two men are trying to earn a decent wage in California during the Great Depression. They travel from ranch to ranch to do odd jobs in the fields. George keeps Lennie motivated by telling him about the beautiful farm they’ll own someday, where they’ll be self-sufficient and Lennie can tend the rabbits.
But one day, things take a grim turn while they’re working at a ranch. Lennie has accidentally killed a puppy, and the wife of Curley – the ranch owner’s son – consoles him by letting him touch her hair. His strength is so great that he accidentally kills her too.
Realizing that Lennie’s race is now run, George kills his friend himself before the mob can get to him.