Literature Analysis #2

1.    1. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck tells the story of two migrant workers named George and Lennie.  Lennie is a little slow and acts as though he was a child, but is very large and strong; so George does all of the talking and tries to get opportunities for them. George and Lennie’s dream is to get enough money to buy a ranch, full of rabbits as far as the eye can see. This hope is sort of what keeps them going.  In the beginning of the book they are on the way to another ranch for a new job after they were forced to leave their last job because Lennie was accused of raping a girl in the town. They find new work and hope that this place will work out better. But Lennie’s strength and mental boundaries cause him to kill his puppy, crush a man’s hand, and eventually kill the ranch owner’s son’s wife. After George learns that Lennie killed Curley’s wife he finds him at the clearing that he told him to run to if anything went wrong, and while telling him about the ranch they’ll get full of rabbits, he kills his best friend in order to save him from the things that would’ve happened had he not done that.

2.    2.The theme of the story is about the American dream. All of the characters in the story in one way or another dream that one day their hard work will pay off and they can live their dreams, but they all have something holding them back. They look at the dream as a means to keep going, even though they all in the back of their minds know they won’t get it.

3.  3. The tone seems to be a tragic one. They have dreams and aspirations, but they are stuck working on a ranch, and have things holding them back from that dream.

“Well, we aint got any,’ George exploded. ‘Whatever we aint got, that’s what you want. God a’mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could get a job an’ work, an’ no trouble. No mess at all, and when the end of the month come I could take my fifty bucks and go into town and get whatever I want.”

Here we see George’s dilemma, his tragedy. Lennie is his best friend but he is also what is holding him back. He can’t have his friend and what he wants, he can only have one.

“I remember the rabbits, George.”

The hell with the rabbits that’s all you can ever remember is them rabbits.”

Here we see a bit of the dream that George and Lennie dream of that they cannot get. They work and dream but they know they cannot get their dream.

“Lennie said, ‘George.”

“Yeah?”

“I done another bad thing.”

“It don’t make no difference,’  George said, and he fell silent again.”

Here we see George give up, after the thing that Lennie has done he realizes that their dream is now all but gone and there is no way for them to get it back, a really tragic quote.

4.   4. Of Mice and Men uses many literary elements and techniques to create the tragic tone and theme; among them are symbolism, setting, imagery, syntax and similes.

“OK Someday—were gonna get the jack together and were gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs and—“

“An’ live off the fatta the lan’,”

Here we see the symbol of the American dream that keeps George and Lennie going. Their dream of owning a ranch, the imagery and similes that they use throughout the story really make the reader envision and understand why they want what they want, but also understand why it’s unattainable.

“I tell you I aint used to livin’ like this. I coulda made somethin’ of myself.” She said darkly, “Maybe I will yet.” And then her words tumbled out in a passion of sommunication, as though she hurried before her listener could be taken away. “I lived in Salinas,” she said. “Come there when I was a kid. Well, a show came though, an’ I met one of the actors. He says I could go with that show. But my ol’ lady wouldn’t let me. She says because I was on’y fifteen. But the guy says I coulda. If I’d went, I couldn’t be livin’ like this, you bet.”

Here we see Curley’s wife tell about her shot at living her dream and how she missed it. It shows how she could’ve attained her goal, but her mother held her back, and now she is stuck in Salinas, living on her husband’s family ranch. She could’ve been the actress she dreamed of but lost out. I also chose this because I chose this because it mentions the setting. During the 1930’s in the Central Valley of California many people worked as migrant workers, dreaming of something more and many failed, just as George and Lennie did.

“A water snake glided smoothly up the pool, twisting its periscope head from side to side; and it swam the length of the pool and came to the legs of a motionless heron that stood in the shallows. A silent head and beak lanced down and plucked it out by the head, and the beak swallowed the little snake while its tail waved frantically.”

Here we see an example of Steinbeck’s great syntax, imagery and symbolism. Lennie just floats along and doesn’t really know or understand the dangers of the world, and eventually the evils of the world catch up to him, and Lennie has to kill him so he can die peacefully. Like the snake being plucked from the water, Lennie is killed without having a chance to think about what is happening.