Symbols In Of Mice And Men

Symbols, Characters, and Exploitation in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men There are many symbols in Of Mice and Men. Symbols such as setting, animals, and language all provide a deeper meaning to the story. The first symbol is setting. The novel begins and ends on the bank of the river (Lisca). The riverbed is located in rural California. In the beginning of the novel, George and Lennie involuntary ran away from Weed when Lennie was accused of trying to have non-consensual intercourse with a girl. When news about this broke out, the men of Weed formed a group of men to try to catch Lennie. George and Lennie were able to get away by hiding in a ditch. They left the area when they knew that the group of men was gone. After leaving the area they found the riverbed and decided that that is where they were going to stay for the night (Steinbeck loc. 86).
The river represents a type of sanctuary to George and Lennie.
The river was typically another “safe place” for Lennie. At one point in the novel, George told Lennie that if he had just happened to get into trouble that he wants him to come to this spot and hide in the brush until George comes for him (Steinbeck loc. 191). At the end of the novel when Lennie accidently killed Curley’s wife, Lennie went to the river like George had told him to do if he had ever gotten into trouble. There Lennie waited for George to come for him. Little did Lennie know that George was there to kill him himself. George did not want Lennie to suffer a more painful death that Curley was going to inflict on him (Steinbeck loc.
1336). The second symbol is the animals in Of Mice and Men. The rabbits are just one of many animal symbols in the novel. The symbol of the rabbits in a figure of speech comes to stand for the “safe place” (Lisca). The “safe place” is considered, in Lennie’s mind, to be the farm that George and Lennie are saving up to buy. He dreams about tending to the rabbits on the farm. Lennie has a desire for soft items, and that is why he wants to have a large number of rabbits on his and George’s future farm (Steinbeck loc. 185-186). The “safe place” for Lennie is simply access to soft things like rabbits, which is considered to be Lennie’s freedom and happiness. The mouse also represents an animal symbol in the novel. Mice are a source of comfort for Lennie. He links the mice to his Aunt Clara because they are all he remembers of her. She would give him the mice to pet but then stopped giving them to him because he would always kill them (Steinbeck loc. 117). The mouse could even symbolize Lennie himself because both Lennie and the mouse are helpless creatures.