Of_Mice_and_Men_Notes

Of Mice and Men George killing Lennie- He does it out of love and friendship it’s the most humane thing for him to do or else Lennie would either be lynched or slowly die in a mental institute. "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place. . . . With us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don't have to sit in no bar room blowin' in our jack jus' because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us." (chapter 1, George) The above quote is a premise for George's -and Lennie's- desire for a place to belong. It is followed up by this next quote, which describes the details of their ideal world: "All kin's a vegetables in the garden, and if we want a little whisky we can sell a few eggs or something, or some milk. We'd jus' live there. We'd belong there. There wouldn't be no more runnin' round the country and gettin' fed by a Jap cook. No, sir, we'd have our own place where we belonged and not sleep in no bunk house."(chapter 1, George) Curley’s wife has “The eye” Page 81-85 Lennie kills the puppy Page 61 curly regrets not shooting his dog. Page 15 Plan to return to the brush. Page 30 George warns Lennie about Curley Page 39 George’s opinion of himself Page 33 Description of Slim The strong characters in this environment attack the weak and the weak attack the weaker. An example of the strong against the weak is when Carlson compels Candy, "I'll put the old devil out of his misery right now," (p.47) to let him shoot his dog. An example of the weak attacking the weaker is when Crooks teases Lennie, "jus' s'pose he don't come back," (p.72) Lennie is the weakest because of his mental disability and his lack of thinking for himself. He would either run away or be eliminated through death. Candy and his dog mirror the image of George and Lennie. Candy being George and his dog being Lennie. When the dog dies, it foreshadows his death because the dog represented him. The contrast between the first chapter and the last also shows his death because the same scene goes from the peaceful field to the violent death of the water snake. This deep change hints on the upcoming tragedy, Lennie's demise. Prompt: Steinbeck includes many instances of foreshadowing throughout Of Mice and Men to prepare the reader for the ending In the novel, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, foreshadowing is used a great deal throughout the whole story. From the beginning to the end, it appears everywhere hinting on what will happen in order to make the book more enjoyable. It was used to show that Lennie will be getting into trouble with Curley's wife, the death of Lennie, and exactly how he dies. The moment that Curley's wife was introduced, an ill feeling overcomes the atmosphere indicating that Lennie will be getting into a mess with her. George states in the very beginning that he is always getting into mishaps, "You do bad things and I got to get you out," (p.11). The situation in Weed involved a girl and Curley's wife just happened to be the only girl on the ranch. Connecting ends with ends, there is a sense of insecurity between these two people. Later on, there was an intimation that she was going to be killed by Lennie because he killed the mouse and the puppy, leading to bigger deaths such as Curley's wife. George plays Solitaire foreshadowing he would be alone. Robert Burns' poem, "To a Mouse," is the source of the famous quotation: "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men / Gang aft agley" ("often go awry"). And, indeed, Of Mice and Men features two men with a scheme - to escape their lives of menial, temporary employment - that goes awry. Beyond this simple plot similarity, the two works both consider the relationship between the human and animal worlds. Burns poem, in which a field worker offers philosophical reflections after upsetting a mouse's nest, mirrors Steinbeck's work, in which Lennie unintentionally destroys the lives of small, furry animals (including, at the novel's opening, a mouse, which is a clear wink at the Burns poem). Nearly every word and image in the novel is carefully chosen to guide the reader to the accidental killing of Curley's wife and the mercy killing of Lennie. The gun used to shoot Candy's decrepit dog is later used by George to shoot Lennie; the many small animals that Lennie crushes out of love foreshadow his panicked killings of his puppy and, moments later, Curley's wife; and the event that drove George and Lennie out of Weed (Lennie's false accusation of rape) parallels the scene in the barn between him and Curley's wife. This dense layering of related plot elements gives the plot an element of inevitability - as though fate has preordained the tragic events of the book.