Honors Blog : Of Mice and Men

Lennie Small

Lennie is a huge, strong man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders; he walks heavily dragging his feet a little. Ironically named Lennie Small when he is of large stature and immense strength. He regularly wears a denim coat, and denim trousers with brass buttons, and black hat. Lennie has limited intelligence, so he relies on George to look after him. He copies George in everything he does and trusts him completely. Lennie’s personality is like a child. He is innocent and mentally handicapped with no ability to understand abstract matters like death. Lennie’s greatest feeling of security comes from petting soft things. When the rest of the world gets complicated and scary, petting soft things helps Lennie feel safe. In petting dead mice, Lennie is doing something that makes him feel safe. Society as a whole would disapprove of what he is doing, but Lennie sees nothing wrong with it. When they have their farm, as George tells him at the end, Lennie will not need to be scared of bad things any more, and he can tend the rabbits and pet them. He is a
migrant field workers in California's Salinas Valley during the Great Depression. He hopes that with the money they make, George and him can have a place of their own where he can raise rabbits. Often he is described in terms of animals. He lumbers like a bear and has the strength of a bear, but his actions are often described like those of a dog because of his loyalty towards George. Throughout the novel he struggles to prove to George that he is a great friend and that he can remember. He strives to do well and stay out of trouble so that he can get rabbits to tend.

George Milton

A quick-witted, intelligent and cynical man man who is friends with Lennie. He looks after Lennie and dreams of a better life. He is small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp, strong features. Every part of him is defined: small, strong hands, slender arms, a thin and bony nose. He wears the same cloths that Lennie wears, the denim coat and jeans, and black hat. He is also a migrant field workers in California's Salinas Valley during the Great Depression. Milton is the last name of the author of one of Steinbeck’s favorite works, Paradise Lost. In that epic poem, Adam and Eve fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. Because of their fall, mankind is doomed to be alone and walk the earth as a lonely being. Some critics believe George represents that doomed man who longs to return to Eden. His one chance to avoid that fate is his relationship with Lennie, which makes them different from the other lonely men. But despite this companionship, at the end of the book, George is fated to be once again alone. George’s personality often reflects both anger and understanding. Of the two men, he is the one who thinks things through and considers how their goals can be reached. During the beginning of the novel George has a love hate relationship with Lennie because he feels as though Lennie holds him back. But by the end of the book he loves Lennie and sees him as his loyal friend.

Curley's Wife

Curley’s wife, like the other players in the drama, is simply a character type and the only woman in the book. The other characters refer to her only as "Curley's wife," which makes her the only significant character in the novel without a name. This lack of individual identity defines her purpose in the story: Steinbeck explained that she is "not a person, she's a symbol. She has no function, except to be a foil – and a danger to Lennie.” She wears too much makeup and dresses like a “whore” with red fingernails and red shoes with ostrich feathers. Curley’s wife knows her beauty is her power, and she uses it to flirt with the ranch hands and make her husband jealous. She is alone on the ranch, and her husband has seen to it that no one will talk to her without fearing a beating. She is used to symbolize Eve from the Garden of Eden, because she tempted Adam to eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge, such as she is a temptation to Lennie. Her death at Lennie’s hands means the end of George and Lennie’s companionship and their dream. By the end of the novel she reveals to Lennie her dreams, her “best laid plans” of becoming a famous actress. She tells Lennie that she only married Curley when she didn't receive a letter she was promised to get into Hollywood. Through her death, the discontentment and ache for attention left her face, turning her beautiful instead of how in the beginning she was only lonely and miserable.

The patterns noted between those three characters is that they all had dreams that failed in the end. Curley's wife and Lennie died while George was left alone and without his companion.