Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men (2100)

File:Miceandmen.gif
Author	John Steinbeck
Publisher	William Heinemann Ltd
Publication date	1937

Of Mice and Men is a novella by John Steinbeck, first published in 1937, which tells the tragic story of George and Lennie, two displaced Anglo migrant farm workers in California during the Great Depression (1929-1939). The story is set on a farm a few miles from Soledad (Soledad is Spanish for Solitude) in the Salinas Valley.

Synopsis

An extended annotated version of the novella can be found at Wikibooks:Of Mice and Men.

The title of the story refers to a line in the Scots poem To a Mouse by the national poet of Scotland Robert Burns: "The best-laid schemes o mice an men, Gang aft agley" (Eng: "Often go awry").

Template:Spoiler Lennie is a large, strong man with the mind of a child, and George is a smaller man with quick wit who cares for Lennie. Lennie's love of touching soft things results in an accusation of rape by a woman whose dress he felt in the town of Weed. A mob from the town vows to lynch Lennie, which forces George and Lennie to leave their current town and find new work at a ranch near Soledad, California. George and Lennie hope to escape the repetitive, wandering fate of most ranch workers by saving up enough money to buy a small farm of their own, and "live offa the fatta the lan'." Lennie is driven to this goal by the prospect of "tending the rabbits". However, this goal is only a dream until Candy, another worker on the farm, offers to contribute his savings for a place on the farm. While subjected to the loneliness and mediocrity of the life they presently lead, George and Lennie's prospect of their own farm attracts yet another hopeful, Crooks, the "Negro" stable buck. Despite their best efforts, however, the dream begins to collapse, completely falling apart when Lennie accidentally kills the wife of Curley, a worker and son of the ranch boss. After killing Curley's wife, Lennie escapes to the river where the story had begun, the place where George told him to go should he ever get into trouble. To spare Lennie from Curley's revenge, which would entail much pain on Lennie's part, George quickly kills Lennie with a Luger pistol, stolen from Carlson. Slim and George then go for a drink to settle George's nerves. The last line of the book is Carlson, the ranch worker who kills Candy's old dog in a fashion similar to Lennie's killing (which foreshadows his death) is talking to Curley saying, "Now what the hell do you suppose is eatin' them two guys?" showing that both characters never learned the value of compassion and friendship.

Overall Plot

George and Lennie are two migrant American laborers, who share a dream; that one day they may buy a farm, and Lennie will be able to take care of the rabbits.

Although Lennie is physically very strong and has the body of a man, he has the mind of a child.

The two men arrive on a ranch near the town of Soledad, where they are about to start work as barley buckers. On arriving there, they meet Candy, an old one-handed man who mops the floor, and Curley. Curley is the Boss' son, and immediately hates Lennie because of his impressive size. George realises that Curley will undoubtedly cause trouble for them.

After the two men are hired by the Boss, they meet Slim, a jerkline skinner. He has a lot of authority and has earned much respect from the men. They also meet Carlson.

Later that night, after dinner, Slim gives Lennie one of his puppies. Lennie is delighted by the gift, for he loves to pet things like rabbits, puppies and even mice, although he sometimes accidentally kills the creatures, not knowing his own strength.

George confides in Slim, telling him about how Lennie has caused many problems before, like in Weed. A girl thought Lennie was trying to rape her, and they had to flee.

Later that night, Candy overhears George and Lennie talking about their dream, and he asks if he could join them. He has quite a bit of money saved up, and they realise that if they combine their money in one month's time, they will have enough to buy the house. All three of them are excited by the prospect of how close they are to fulfilling their dream.

Still later that night, Curley attacks Lennie when he sees Lennie smiling when Curley is arguing with Carlson. Lennie does nothing to protect himself until George tells him to fight back. Then Lennie crushes Curley's hand. George is worried because he thinks he will be fired, but Slim convinces Curley to tell people that he got his hand caught in a machine.

The next night, (Saturday night) while most of the men are in town, Lennie visits Crooks, the Negro stable buck who lives alone in the barn. Crooks tries to explain the loneliness he feels but Lennie is too worried about George to listen.

After a while Candy also joins them, and when he talks about the house they are going to buy, Crooks becomes interested. However, when Curley's wife appears, looking for company because she is lonely, trouble starts.

When the three men refuse to answer her truthfully when she asks what happened to Curley's hand, she becomes angry. She guesses from the bruises on Lennie's face that he injured her husband in a fight.

Crooks becomes fed up with Curley's wife and asks her to leave. Curley's wife refuses, and insults Crooks, knowing that she can accuse him of molesting her, and she will be believed rather than the men.

Candy says he hears the men returning from town, and Curley's wife leaves, afraid that her husband might find her in the barn.

After Curley's wife has insulted, humiliated and degraded Crooks, he becomes disheartened and withdraws his offer to join Candy, Lennie and George on their farm. Candy and George both leave when George comes to find them.

The next afternoon, Lennie is in the barn. He is worried because he has accidentally killed his puppy and is afraid that George will not allow him to feed the rabbits if he finds out.

While Lennie debates whether or not to tell George, Curley's wife appears, and soon gets Lennie involved in a conversation with her, although George had warned Lennie never to talk to her.

She kindly lets Lennie stroke her hair, but when he won't let go she panics and struggles. She begins to scream, and Lennie is afraid he will get into trouble, so he shakes her to make her stop. He succeeds, but unfortunately he also kills her.

Remembering George's advice to run to the brush by the river if he is ever in trouble, Lennie does so.

Candy discovers Curley's wife, and fetches George. George has to tell the other men, although there will be little chance of taking Lennie alive if Curley finds out that he killed his wife.

When the men hear the news they go into a sort of killing frenzy. When Carlson finds his gun missing, he reports this to Curley, and it is decided that there can be no mercy for Lennie since everyone assumes he has the gun. Without further ado, the manhunt for Lennie begins.

Lennie waits for George to come and fetch him, and while he does, he imagines both his Aunt Clara and a giant rabbit reproaching him. Then George appears.

Lennie persuades George to tell him his favorite story about how he will feed the rabbits. As George tells the story, he withdraws Carlson's gun from his pocket, and at the end of the story, he mercifully kills Lennie by shooting him.

When the other men arrive they are amazed that George managed to get the gun from Lennie and then shoot him with it, except for Slim, who immediately understands what really happened and offers George consolation. The two friends walk off together in sorrow, mourning the loss of their mutual friend.

Notes

Steinbeck wrote this book, along with The Grapes of Wrath, in what is now Monte Sereno, California, in his home at 16250 Greenwood Lane.

The novel was banned from various American school libraries or curricula in 1993 and 1994 for "promoting euthanasia" but remains required reading in many other American high school and middle school English courses. Also, many students are studying the novel for GCSE English Literature in England and Wales, Standard Grade in Scotland and the Leaving Certificate in Ireland. It is also studied in several high schools in Victoria, Australia as part of the leadup to the completion of a VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education).

Steinbeck's dog ate an early manuscript of the novel.[1]

Adaptations

Films

The novel was made into five films:

A 1939 film, Of Mice and Men starring Lon Chaney Jr. (Lennie) and Burgess Meredith (George), directed by Lewis Milestone

A 1970 TV movie

A Turkish 1975 TV movie

A 1981 TV movie, Of Mice and Men starring Randy Quaid (Lennie) and Robert Blake (George), Ted Neeley (Curley), directed by Reza Badiyi

A 1992 film, Of Mice and Men, starring John Malkovich (Lennie) and Gary Sinise (George), directed by Gary Sinise.

Opera

Carlisle Floyd wrote an opera based on this novel in 1970. The opera features The Narrator, a character who is not found in the book.

Play

Stage adaptations have also been produced.

The original production was produced by Sam H. Harris, and it opened on November 23rd, 1937, in the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. It ran for 207 performances, and starred Wallace Ford as George and Broderick Crawford as Lennie. Also of note, the role of Crooks was performed by Leigh Whipper, the first African-American member of the Actors' Equity Association. It was chosen as Best Play of the 1937-38 season by the New York Drama Critics' Circle. (source: Critics' Prize Plays, World Publishing Company, 1945)

The play was famously revived in a 1974 Broadway production staring Kevin Conway as George and James Earl Jones as Lennie. Noted stage actress Pamela Blair played Curley's Wife in this production.

In the early 1990s, the Steppenwolf Theatre Company mounted a production with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich playing the roles of George and Lennie respectively.

Other references

Characters similar to George and Lennie have been popular since the publication of "Of Mice and Men". For example, the cartoon duo Pinky and the Brain are also somewhat similar to Lennie and George, respectively. In a classic Bugs Bunny cartoon, Bugs encounters an abominable snowman, a huge, but simple minded giant who grabs and proceeds to put Bugs in a crushing hug saying "What a cute little bunny rabbit. I'm gonna love him and squeeze him and call him George". This could be a reference to Lennie's love of bunnies, slowness, or large size, and a reference to the book's other protagonist, George Milton.

Another reference appears in the film Gremlins 2. Although it did not arrise in the film two of the original mogwai that appear are called Lenny and George by the creators of the film, as they both were designed to physically resemble them.

The title "Of Mice and Men" is popular in scientific journals whenever discrepancies between animal models and human subjects arise. It rarely refers to the contents of Steinbeck's novel. The-work in-progress names of the Transformers: Cybertron characters Crumplezone and Ransack were Lennie and George, which interestingly enough left an impact on the Japanese naming for the two - Landbullet and Gasket. In 2006, Something Awful put up a Homestar Runner parody as part of their Flash Tub. In it, Strong Mad's character played the role of Lenny, killing a mouse (Played by a miniature The Cheat), then a lady resembling Marzipan. Strong Bad's character, called "Dong Dad," holds up a gun and tells "Stongy" to close his eyes while he tells him about the rabbits. American thrash metal band Megadeth wrote a song called Of Mice and Men, but it had nothing to do with the book.

The alternated title, "Of Mice and Women" has also become popular for a wild variety of topics, from cure for breast cancer (developed with the help of experiments on mice) to female aggression.