Of Mice And Men Book Review Essay
Of Mice and Men Book Review People these days always say: “It’s not on the outside that matters, but what is on the inside which truly counts”. I feel that this statement always rings true in the areas that count. Morals, emotions, thoughts, and beliefs will always conquer the perfect body, tone and physical appearance or attributes. John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men perfectly shows how Lennie, one of the main characters, shows this attribute in a display case of his heart. To start, the characters of the book are George, Lennie, Carlson, Candy, Slim, Curley, his wife, Crooks, and Whit. The main characters, however, are George and Lennie. Uneducated and, in Lennie’s case, mentally handicapped farmhands working for Carlson at his farm in rural California. Lennie’s disability requires George, his lifelong friend, to care for him and keep him out of trouble. Lennie loves soft things like animals and unfortunately,
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dresses and hair, which gets him into a boatload of trouble that George has to save him from. George and Lennie work toward their dream to eventually buy their own farm and make a living. They wanted to keep this a secret between themselves and Candy, an old farmhand who wanted to join them. When Lennie spilled the beans to Crooks, the negro stablehand, Crooks doubted them, wanted to join them, and changed his mind once more. Crooks had this to say about their dream: “I seen hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads . . . every damn one of ’em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ’em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land” (Steinbeck 74).
George and Lennie, the main characters in Of Mice and Men show a bond of friendship tighter than that of many others. A bus drops the duo off in rural California to work at Carlson’s ranch. On the way there, Lennie finds a mouse and crushes it unintentionally due to his massive size, which provides a foreshadowing effect for future events. They’re a little ways out so end up a day late to the ranch which leads them to Candy who shows them to their bunkhouse. Following this, more characters are introduced including Curley, Curley’s wife, Slim, and a brief appearance of Crooks. Lennie has a past of accused rape since he likes to touch soft things: a woman’s dress which in turn nearly gets him lynched. Lennie gets a puppy from Candy’s old dog, which gets put down because of how old it is, and eventually crushes it too. Lennie tries to hide the puppy when Curley's wife approaches him and discovers the dead animal. She tries to console him by letting him touch her hair. Lennie, loving soft things, pulls her hair and she cries out, he covers her mouth and she tries to squirm out of his ever increasing in strength grip. “ ‘Don’t you go yellin’,’ he [Lennie] said, and he shook her; and her body flopped like a fish. And then she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck” (Steinbeck 91). This accident causes a mob to form where Lennie runs back to the valley in the beginning of the book and sadly, ends up dead, not by the mob though, by his friend George who quickly dispatches him when he gets Lennie to think happily of his dream. Steinbeck uses imagery, foreshadowing, and connections to the Bible in his book to help improve the story and message.
The opening and ending scenes in the book are the same, “On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees-willows fresh and green with every spring carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the winter’s flooding…” (Steinbeck 1). This imagery provides an amazing picture for the reader and could be interpreted as “Edenesque” by the reader based on the beauty of the surroundings. The fact that the book ends in this Edenesque landscape suggests the consuming of the apple in the bible where this sin is compared to the death and misunderstanding of Lennie. Steinbeck also uses foreshadowing in the case of the dead mouse and the story of the rape accusation. These two events line up perfectly with the death of the puppy and accidental murder of Curley’s Wife, an animal death, and then an escalation to the misdemeanor of a
woman. Overall, I would definitely recommend this novel to whomever wishes to find a good story. If for one reason alone: Lennie. To me, Lennie is the most lovable and awesome character in the novel and in most novels I’ve read. In the climax of the novel, I started hating the book because I knew what was going to happen to poor Lennie, but that just makes the book better since you can connect so well with the characters in just 100 pages. John Steinbeck expertly tugs on his reader’s emotions in his adeptly written novel Of Mice and Men through his childish character Lennie, and his experiences.
dresses and hair, which gets him into a boatload of trouble that George has to save him from. George and Lennie work toward their dream to eventually buy their own farm and make a living. They wanted to keep this a secret between themselves and Candy, an old farmhand who wanted to join them. When Lennie spilled the beans to Crooks, the negro stablehand, Crooks doubted them, wanted to join them, and changed his mind once more. Crooks had this to say about their dream: “I seen hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads . . . every damn one of ’em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ’em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land” (Steinbeck 74).
George and Lennie, the main characters in Of Mice and Men show a bond of friendship tighter than that of many others. A bus drops the duo off in rural California to work at Carlson’s ranch. On the way there, Lennie finds a mouse and crushes it unintentionally due to his massive size, which provides a foreshadowing effect for future events. They’re a little ways out so end up a day late to the ranch which leads them to Candy who shows them to their bunkhouse. Following this, more characters are introduced including Curley, Curley’s wife, Slim, and a brief appearance of Crooks. Lennie has a past of accused rape since he likes to touch soft things: a woman’s dress which in turn nearly gets him lynched. Lennie gets a puppy from Candy’s old dog, which gets put down because of how old it is, and eventually crushes it too. Lennie tries to hide the puppy when Curley's wife approaches him and discovers the dead animal. She tries to console him by letting him touch her hair. Lennie, loving soft things, pulls her hair and she cries out, he covers her mouth and she tries to squirm out of his ever increasing in strength grip. “ ‘Don’t you go yellin’,’ he [Lennie] said, and he shook her; and her body flopped like a fish. And then she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck” (Steinbeck 91). This accident causes a mob to form where Lennie runs back to the valley in the beginning of the book and sadly, ends up dead, not by the mob though, by his friend George who quickly dispatches him when he gets Lennie to think happily of his dream. Steinbeck uses imagery, foreshadowing, and connections to the Bible in his book to help improve the story and message.
The opening and ending scenes in the book are the same, “On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees-willows fresh and green with every spring carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the winter’s flooding…” (Steinbeck 1). This imagery provides an amazing picture for the reader and could be interpreted as “Edenesque” by the reader based on the beauty of the surroundings. The fact that the book ends in this Edenesque landscape suggests the consuming of the apple in the bible where this sin is compared to the death and misunderstanding of Lennie. Steinbeck also uses foreshadowing in the case of the dead mouse and the story of the rape accusation. These two events line up perfectly with the death of the puppy and accidental murder of Curley’s Wife, an animal death, and then an escalation to the misdemeanor of a
woman. Overall, I would definitely recommend this novel to whomever wishes to find a good story. If for one reason alone: Lennie. To me, Lennie is the most lovable and awesome character in the novel and in most novels I’ve read. In the climax of the novel, I started hating the book because I knew what was going to happen to poor Lennie, but that just makes the book better since you can connect so well with the characters in just 100 pages. John Steinbeck expertly tugs on his reader’s emotions in his adeptly written novel Of Mice and Men through his childish character Lennie, and his experiences.