Of Mice and Men

Original post: 18th September 2007

Of Mice and Men is John Steinbeck’s 1937 novella that tells, to quote a friend, the story of when “dreams die in the hands of mercy.”

-contains spoilers-

George Milton and Lennie Small are displaced ranch workers in California during the time of the Great Depression. George is a small man with a quick wit and biting cynicism while Lennie is a man “with no meanness of spirit” but, unfortunately, cannot understand the limits of his own strength.

The two men share a dream: to save up enough money to buy a piece of land to call their own (where Lennie’s part is to raise soft rabbits so that he can pet their fur) where they can “live off the fatta the land.” At the ranch featured in the story, this dream appears to be attainable and every man that it touches wants to leave their lonesome, wandering life behind for a taste of such paradise. However, Lennie unwittingly kills the pretty, whorish wife of the ranch owner’s son while trying to stroke her hair and leaves George to realise that the dream was only an empty reverie and that he is destined to lead a life of loneliness and despair, like all the other migrant workers before him. Not wanting to leave Lennie’s life at the hands of the lynch mob that had been gathered, George shoots Lennie in the back of the head while giving him one last retelling of the dream.

Although the outcome of this novella was spoiled to me by a friend who used Of Mice and Men in her Extended Essay, it lost none of its unexpected poignancy and managed to leave me in tears at its conclusion. They weren’t tears of sadness at Lennie’s death, but more so sorrow at the injustice that divested these lonesome men of the only happiness they ever had.

“He looked helplessly back at Curley’s wife, and gradually his sorrow and his anger grew into words. “You God damn tramp,” he said viciously. “You done it, di’n't you? I s’pose you’re glad. Ever’body knowed you’d mess things up. You wasn’t no good. You ain’t no good now, you lousy tart.” He sniveled, and his voice shook. “I could of hoed in the garden…”"

But you must understand that the blame can’t entirely be placed upon Curley’s wife and, as in real life, the conclusion was as a result of much more than that.

Throughout the novella are events that foreshadow the tragic ending and the death of the dream. Lennie is described as handling a mouse he had killed while trying to pet it and the two men are on the run from another small town in which Lennie was accused of rape as he was trying to touch a girl’s soft dress. Even Lennie’s death is hinted at through the execution of an old dog.

The novella is set in the Salinas Valley (same as for East of Eden) and is beautiful and short enough to hold your attention from the start until the end. I read it in three days only because I HAD TO STUDY FOR EXAMS D: of educational priorities but trust me, if I had had the time, I would have eaten it in an afternoon.

As a last note, I’d suggest that this book be set as required reading for Australian schools, but that would be too much to hope for with the decline in quality of our educational system. Don’t get me wrong, the quantity’s just peachy but the quality’s flowing downriver as fast as a beaver on a log.

Just for me to “rêve un petit rêve.”
If they ever made this into a film in the next 5 years, I can see William Fichtner as Slim. *cough cough* Possibly Ron Perlman as Lennie (but he has too interesting a face) – remember him as One from La Cité des enfants perdus? And Robert Knepper (♥) as either Curley or George. Hm.