Turner Garland

Turner Garland
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck
Historical Fiction
Just Right
Just Finished 105

1. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is a novel about the hardships of two friends during the great depression. The two friends, Lennie and George abandoned their last work spot and have traveled together to work at a new farm. Lennie has disabilities, and without the guidance and support from George he would not be able to live properly. George is always trying to keep Lennie out of trouble. Even though George keeps a close eye on Lennie, he always seems to do something wrong. The end of the book is when Lennie really messes up.  Lennie loves to feel soft things, so when he is in the barn alone, a co-worker's wife joins him. After Lennie asks, the wife tells him that it is fine that he feels her hair. Lennie can't control his extreme strength and ends up breaking the wife's neck, killing her. Lennie knew that he had screwed up big this time and he remembered what George had told him. George had said to go to a spot in the woods and hide away if anything ever went wrong. The only chance Lennie had, was to run away and hide at this spot. So Lennie toke off leaving the dead wife lying on the barn floor. The other workers and George find her body and decide to go and hunt Lennie down. Grabbing their guns they set off to avenge the dead woman. George knows Lennie too well and knows exactly where Lennie went off to. George ran ahead of the rest of the men with a pistol that he had stole from one of the workers. He neared the spot and as he expected Lennie was sitting right there, crying at his wrongdoing. If the other men catch Lennie, George is sure that they will kill him and he will have a slow painful death. With not much of a choice George decides that a painless death is better, so he pulled the trigger of the luger and shot Lennie right in the back of his head.

2. John Steinbeck is an author that is new to me. I have never read any of his other books, but after reading Of Mice and Men, I found that I really like his style of writing. Foreshadowing is a key aspect of Steinbeck's writing that I really liked. To me, having hints and clues of what is going to happen later in the story is important. Foreshadowing makes the book more interesting and definitely makes you want to keep reading. Another part of Steinbeck's writing that I like a lot was the way he described the characters. He made sure that the reader understood George and Lennie from the beginning all the way to the end. This made me really feel like I knew them. Steinbeck described the relationships between each characters, like Lennie and George, or Candy and his dog. The relationships between them where very strong and a key part of the plot was based on the relationship between the characters.  The themes that Steinbeck illustrated were strong and very powerful. Love and compassion was a main theme. Also, non-traditional families played  a large role with many of the characters. After reading this book I know that I will be reading more from John Steinbeck.

3. The non-traditional family theme shapes the entire plot of this novel. George and Lennie are a non-traditional family. They travel together, they live together. Almost everything they do, they do together. The reason they do basically everything together is because they need each other. Although lennie gets lots of help from George they both need the support of each other Without Lennie, George might go out and spend all his money on alcohol and at the whore house. Without Lennie, and Lennie's dream to someday buy a little house and have their own land, George would probably waste the money. Another place that the theme of non-traditional families appears strongly, is with Candy (an old co-worker) and his old dog. Candy and his dog share a bond just like George and Lennie. They both support each other and care for each other. Candy's dog needs Candy for food and a home, and Candy needs his dog for the comfort and also the fact that his dog has been around him for so long that the dog is a part of Candy. In a non-traditional family they need to support each other and it befits everyone. I think that non-traditional family is very important to this story and without it this novel wouldn't be the same.

4. John Steinbeck introduced a lot of characters in this book but my favorite one was George. George's character is very well developed and I could put myself in his shoes. I really liked George because he had the heart to take care of Lennie. Because of Lennie's disabilities, George had to watch everything he did and make sure he wasn't getting into trouble. This would be extremely hard especially during the Great Depression. I really like how George had the drive to do this. Another reason I like George a lot is because he could see into the future very well. He knew when he had to do something. He always could tell when someone or something was trouble. Every time he warned Lennie to stay away from something or not do something and Lennie didn't listen, Lennie ended up in trouble. Although there were a lot of great characters, George stood out to me and was my favorite.

5. My least favorite character was Curley. Curley is a short, mean man, always picking fights and causing trouble. Curley's dad is the boss of the whole farm, and that makes Curley think he can do whatever he wants. It seems that because he is short this makes him want His overall attitude is something that I just don't like. In the story he is always mad at someone or blaming something on someone else. In the book even Curley's wife says that he is a mean man. This book shows the imperfections in life and Curley definitely adds those imperfections.

6. Authors try to create a path for the reader and foreshadow events to lead them to what is going to happen in the end. John Steinbeck did this very well. He gave me clues of what would happen in the end. Steinbeck gave me hints that in the end Lennie would be killed because he did something bad. The author did this by taking the time to describe the event when a worker killed Candy's dog to put him out of his misery. Candy agreed to let his dog be killed for his own good just like George killed Lennie for his own good in the end of the book.  Lennie is so strong he kills things that he doesn't mean too. Steinbeck foreshadows the ending when Lennie kills Curley's wife by describing the times when Lennie kills the mice. While Lennie is feeling the soft fur of the mice he kills them because of his strength. Then later in the story he kills his pup. All these events lead the end when he kills Curley's wife.