Of Mice and Men

...Book Review...

Of Mice and Men, by J.E Steinback

John Steinback's novel Of Mice and Men is an enlightening novel which delves in to themes such as friendship and shared visions or dreams. Steinback effectively portrays a world where woman do not belong.

The novel is about the journey of two companions who travel together to find work and the dream which they both have clear visions of. Both Lennie and George dream of having a small amount of land for themselves. Their dream is simple yet it seems so unrealistic at most times, to George especially.

The story is wrapped up in a tragic manner. Whilst the other ranch workers were pre-occupied, Lennie was petting his dead puppy. The boss' son's wife, who was a flirtatious character and also the only female in the novel came along and started speaking to Lennie. They then moved on to the topic of Lennie's passion to touch soft things and it was then when she offered Lennie to touch her hair as she claimed it was nice and soft. Lennie did so, but when she prompted him to stop he didn't and she started to get scared so this then put Lennie in freight and it caused him to kill her. After the other characters had discovered what had happened, Lennie had already run away, to a play where George had previously told him to go if he ever got into trouble. After Curley had discovered what had happened he was determined to kill him, Carlson decided to assist Curley with this and decided he would use his gun, but George had already taken his gun. When Carlson went to get his gun he realized it was gone and automatically blamed Lennie for stealing it.

George was the one who found Lennie first. But previous to this Lennie was in a state of shock in what he had just done. Lennie was speaking to his aunt Clara and a gigantic rabbit in his head. Lennie was trying to justify himself to them as they were incriminating him, George interrupted Lennie in doing this and then calmed him down. George made sure Lennie knew that he hadn't done anything wrong and assured him of their pleasant future which they would live together. However, immediately after doing this George hesitatingly killed Lennie with Carlson's gun.

Lennie, the other central character, is a conveyed as a "giant" with no real intelligence. Lennie has a mild disability and as a result of this and his immense powerful strength, Lennie and George have to leave their hometown of Weed because Lennie allegedly raped a woman. This leaves them in a predicament of having to walk several miles to their new found job at a ranch by The Salinas River.