Kate Sinclair

Kate Sinclair

Of mice and Men

John Steinbeck

Realistic Fiction

Just Right

Just Finished 107

1) The ending Of Mice and Men was defiantly upsetting to most people. Lennie is in the barn with his new pup. By mistake Lennie pets the puppy too hard and the pup bites him. To punish the pup Lennie hits him. When the pup doesn’t move afterwards Lennie realized he must have hit him too hard.  Startled by another mistake he is frantic scanning the barn making sure no one saw. In the moment all Lennie can think about is how if George finds out he killed the pup he will not be able to tend the rabbits. While Lennie starts to put himself down about killing the pup Curley’s wife sneaks in. Embarrassed she might see the pup dead he covers it with hay quickly. When Curley’s wife sees the pup she acts as nothing happened. George told Lennie to stay away from her so he tells her to leave. Next Curley’s wife starts venting to him about how Curley won’t let her talk to anyone and she does not like her husband at all. When she asks Lennie about the pup and rabbits he admits he likes soft things. She then admits she too likes soft things like her hair. She tells Lennie that he can pet her hair. Lennie strokes her hair harder and harder after every pet. Curley’s wife soon gets agitated asking him stop. Her asking turns to yelling making Lennie hold on to her hair even tighter. She then starts screaming nervous George might get upset he covers her mouth . Coving her mouth goes to breaking her neck by mistake. Next Candy comes in looking for Lennie and finds Curley’s wife dead. Candy get George and George knows what happened right away when he can’t find Lennie. He knows the other men would do much worse to him when trying to kill him. When they next find that Lennie stole Carlson’s gun they go to kill him. George goes and finds Lennie on his own and makes Lennie give him the gun then takes him to a happy place in his mind before he kills him. George tells him how much he cares about him and also talks to him about how Lennie can tend the rabbits. Then he shoots him in the back of the head and leaves with slim to go get a drink.

2) My over all thought of Of Mice and Men was that it was a very well written book. Although it had a very sad ending there was much meaning in the book. The relationship between Lennie and George was just such a great part of the book and made me happy for them and happy almost even at the end of the book because George had the heart to kill him himself instead of let Lennie suffer. I was so touched by the story and thought that it was very well written also in terms of detail and wanting to know the ending if they would ever live the American dream. The story was however a bit of a tricky to understand with all of the slang. I found sometimes it was hard to understand and I got confused by the dialogue. I enjoyed this classic and hope to read another one of Steinbeck’s famous books.

3) One key theme in the book is Isolation. It is shown with Lennie because of his disability. He is excluded from going out with the guys because they don’t want him around with them.  George tells him to stay in a certain place and not to talk to anyone. Lennie is mostly only talking to George all the time and is not as social because of his disability. Curley’s wife is isolated because Curley won’t let her talk to any men afraid she might flirt with them or anyone because he wants her all to himself. Crooks is also isolated because of his race. He also can’t go out with all the other workers and can stay with them either kept in the barn.  Nobody really talks to him because of his race and because of it he keeps himself isolated. The last main character in the book is Candy because of his age and because he has no hand.  He is already isolated because he can’t work with all of the men because some of the work he is unable to do because he has no hand and his age.

4) My favorite character in the book is George because he is a true friend and over all a really good person. He had the heart to kill Lennie to make sure he would not suffer through his death. He also took care of Lennie when he didn’t have to just because he was a great friend. He acted as a mother to Lennie staying with him through the hard times. He also was very smart knowing how to work out his life and Lennie’s.

5) My least favorite character was Curley. Curley was always rude and took advantage of Lennie which I thought was never right. Just because he was jealous of Lennie size wise and because of Lennie and
George’s connection he was always making unnecessary comments. He also was very mean to his wife keeping her isolated being overly protective. He would not even let his wife talk to other man because he was so self conscious.  His insecurities had a negative effect on his personality being mean to anyone he was jealous of.

6) The ending of the book was not expected but after I read the ending I realized that many things were leading up to the ending. Lennie killing the mice and then the girls dress in weed and then killing the pup all led up to him killing Curley’s wife. All of the things that went wrong were because Lennie liked to pet soft things was the bottom line but because of his disability it went downhill. Also the fact that someone else killed Candies dog relates to how George killed Lennie. After someone else kills Candy’s dog Candy realizes it was his responsibility to do so because he was the closest. Yes George also killed Lennie because the other men would do worse but also because he had the biggest connection with Lennie and knew it was his responsibility to do so. I thought that at one point in the book Lennie would die but never thought it would be George. I always thought Lennie would feel bad because George is always complaining he had to take care of him and would go live in the cave and not know how to survive.