Of Mice and Men Lennie What Did George Tell Lennie He Would Do if He Got in Trouble Again
It's clear that John Steinbeck's 1937 novella Of Mice and Men was written to be read as a parable. Only a parable for what? I mean, what's the lesson it is teaching?
It's not well-nigh euthanasia. Information technology's not about intellectual disability (what used to be called mental retardation). It's not most doing what you take to do even if is painful, even though the "god-like" Slim tells George on the final page:
"A guy got to sometimes."
And a few lines afterwards:
"Yous hadda, George. I swear you hadda."
Yes, the book is about all of those things. But the parable's lesson is deeper, and information technology has something to do with friendship and with dreams.
Isolated, divide, apart
The friendship that George Milton and Lennie Small have is, inside their globe, extraordinary. No i else in Of Mice and Men is in a twosome.
Curly and his wife are officially in a twosome, having married, just they are each alone souls wandering through their days. And so is every other character — lonely.
Even Slim, the great hero of the ranch's landscape, is alone. Steinbeck describes him this manner:
He was a jerkline skinner, the prince of the ranch, capable of driving ten, 16, fifty-fifty 20 mules with a single line to the leaders. He was capable of killing a wing on the wheeler'due south butt with a bull whip without touching the mule.
In that location was a gravity in his mode and a tranquillity so profound that all talk stopped when he spoke. His authority was so great that his word was taken on any subject, be it politics or love….His hatchet face was ageless. He might accept been thirty-five or 50. His ear heard more than was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, only of understanding beyond idea. His easily, large and lean, were as delicate in their action as those of a temple dancer.
Similar an Achilles or a Hercules, Slim is head and shoulders to a higher place everyone else effectually him. Yet, like everyone else except Lennie and George, he isolated, separate and apart.
His grapheme and talents make him a champion. However, he doesn't ain the ranch. He is, like everyone else, fastened to this state and this job as if the ranch were a prison. Sure, he could go somewhere else, but the situation would be the same.
He is alone the style Curly is lonely and Curly'south wife and Curly'southward male parent, the owner, and Carlson, and Crooks.
"Scared of each other"
As the novel opens, Candy, the handman who lost a hand in a ranch blow, is in a kind of a twosome with his former and evil-smelling canis familiaris.
But, perhaps because of the companionship that he has that others don't have, Candy is forced by Carlson, with Slim'southward approval, to let Carlson have the dog out into the dark and shoot it in the back of the head.
The twosome of George and Lennie is much more unsettling to those on the ranch, mysterious.
George is questioned over and again why they are together. The insinuation is that George is somehow taking advantage of Lennie. Even Slim wants to know, perhaps to protect Lennie. Slim says:
"Own't many guys travel around together. I don't know why. Maybe always'body in the whole damn world is scared of each other."
I think that Slim's annotate gets to the heart of Steinbeck's parable in Of Mice and Men.
"Kinda used to each other"
Slim notes that it's "kinda funny a cuckoo like him and a smart guy like you travelin' together."
George defends Lennie as "no cuckoo" and says information technology isn't so odd that the two of them travel together since "him and me was both born in Auburn. I knowed his Aunt Clara…When his Aunt Clara died, Lennie just come along with me out workin'. Got kinda used to each other later a little while."
It may look, George says, that Lennie is dumb and George is smart. But he says that, if he were smart, he'd have a place of his own instead of working for other people. Besides, the friendship of the 2 men isn't one-sided. George benefits too:
"I own't got no people. I seen the guys that get around on the ranches alone. That ain't no good. They don't have no fun. Subsequently a long time they get hateful. They get wantin' to fight all the time."
"A hoot in hell"
George and Lennie don't go effectually on the ranches lone. They are a twosome. They aren't isolated, separate, apart.
In the concluding pages, George, at Lennie'southward urging, tells again about their friendship, near how "guys like us got no fambly…make a little stake an' and so they blow it in….ain't got nobody in the worl' that gives a hoot in hell about 'em."
And Lennie interrupts:
"Just not us. Tell about us now."
George starts, "But not us," and Lennie again interrupts: "Considering—" and George goes on: "Because I got you an' —" And Lennie responds in triumph and joy:
"An' I got you. Nosotros got each other, that's what, that gives a hoot in hell nigh united states."
Considering they are a twosome
Maybe, as Slim says, everyone "in the whole damn world is scared of each other." But non Lennie and George.
Their friendship, for all the difficulties they take with each other, is a source of fun and joy. They aren't mean and bitter like those who travel alone. They experience good well-nigh themselves. They experience loved.
This is one aspect of the lesson of Steinbeck's parable. Information technology is through friendship — i.east., through love — that people find themselves and feel skilful about themselves.
Yeah, George has less freedom because of Lennie and the trouble he gets into. Yes, Lennie has less freedom because George is constantly reining him in. But these irritations are simply irritations.
Because they are a twosome, neither man feels solitary, separate, apart.
"Our own"
The other aspect of Steinbeck's lesson is the dream that George relates with not bad bask and that Lennie celebrates whenever he hears it.
The dream has to practice with an bodily identify that'south upwards for sale:
"Well, it'due south x acres. Got a little win'mill. Got a petty shack on information technology, an' a chicken run. Got a kitchen, orchard, cherries, apples, peaches, 'cots, basics, got a few berries. They'south a identify for alfalfa and enough h2o to flood information technology. They'a a pig pen —"
"An' rabbits, George."
"No place for rabbits now, but I could easy build a few hutches and you could feed alfalfa to the rabbits."
Over several pages, halfway through the novel, George expands on this dream equally Lennie grows more than and more excited, finally proverb:
"An' information technology'd exist our own, an' nobody could can united states of america."
"We got fren's"
And it'due south not only Lennie who'due south excited. George'south ain excitement is articulate every time he talks about his vision. And this excitement is contagious. First, Candy and, and so, Crooks, the crippled black stablehand, want to join in with Lennie and George, captivated by the dream.
Indeed, when Curly's wife, bitter and lonely, tells them their hopes are a mirage, Candy stands up to her, telling her that they have a place to go to if she gets them fired.
"An' we got fren'due south, that's what we got. Maybe there was a fourth dimension when we was scared of getting' canned, but we ain't no more. We got our ain lan', and it's ours, an' nosotros c'n go to it."
It is a dream, and ane that the men aren't able to achieve because tragedy intervenes. Even so, Steinbeck's parable is almost how dreaming and friendship enrich life.
Any George and Lennie have to face on a mean solar day-to-day ground is easier because they accept a dream of anytime finding a ameliorate life. And, fifty-fifty if they fail to make information technology a reality — and there are many indications in Of Mice and Men that they will fail — the dream fills their days with wonder, dazzler and hope.
Love and hope
Their friendship makes the dream possible. And the dream makes the friendship possible.
Processed and Crooks, hearing the dream, desire to bring together with Lennie and George. They will be, Candy says, "fren's."
The landscape described in Steinbeck's novel is hard and brutal to work. The people set in that landscape are lone, separate, apart.
Except for George and Lennie. Their lives are rich and vibrant because they take each other and share their dream.
Set in a world where "ever'body…is scared of each other," Of Mice and Men is a novel of love and hope. And, ultimately, tragedy.
Patrick T. Reardon
12.14.21
villanuevacirly1953.blogspot.com
Source: https://patricktreardon.com/book-review-of-mice-and-men-by-john-steinbeck/
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