mice and men

• The novella of mice and men by john steinbeck takes place over four days starting on thursday evening and ending on sunday
• George and Lenny discuss their dream of owning their own ranch and working for themselves, but this is shown to be an impossibility
• Lenny accidentally kills Curly's wife, and George's only option is to shoot Lenny before he's caught
• George


  A husbandman, a person who cultivates the land, associated with commitment and brotherly love towards Lenny
• Lenny


  A figure with childlike innocence but immense physical strength, based on a real person Steinbeck had met, symbolizing humankind's animal nature and inevitable doom
• Slim


  The mule driver, a permanent employee who represents fairness, sound judgment, and the conscience of the novel
• Lenny


  • Carries his own destiny
  • Represents the mouse in his own pocket
• Slim


  • Mule driver and permanent employee of the ranch
  • Epitomizes fairness, sound judgment and dignified acceptance
  • Respected on the ranch by peers and superiors
  • Accepts and sanctions George and Lenny within the bunkhouse community
  • Depicted as the conscience of the novel and the voice of truth
  • Understands that George probably killed Lenny to protect him
• Curly


  • The boss's son
  • Depicted as a very hyper masculine symbol of the angry young generation of the 1930s
  • Insecure and has a grudge against bigger, taller men
  • Ostracized from the ranch community as he represents white collar power
  • Rendered a laughingstock because of the actions of his own flirtatious wife
  • Has an inability to create a meaningful relationship with his wife
• Curly's Wife


  • The only woman on the ranch
  • Marries Curly not due to love but due to limited choices as a woman in 1930s America
  • Filled with adolescent rage at missing out on a Hollywood career
  • Nameless, an ironic indicator that she will never be famous
  • Presented consistently as a sexual commodity
  • Her overt sexuality is an inversion of George's puritanical nature
  • Starved of companionship and acceptance, an outsider
  • Fulfills the role of Eve in the Genesis story, a temptress and femme fatale
• Crooks


  • The only African-American man on the ranch
  • Partially disabled, called Crooks because his back is crooked and bent
  • Carries a double burden of being black and disabled
  • Conditioned by an environment of brokenness, cynicism, disillusionment and low self-esteem
  • Occupies the lowest status on the ranch house community
  • Responds to his treatment with intellectualized fortitude and resilience
  • Symbolic objects in his place characterize his world of brokenness
• Candy


  • A disabled swamper, used as a scapegoat for the brutality of the ranch house community
  • A sentimentalised figure, the object of reader sympathy
  • Offers George his life savings to try and attain the American dream
  • Inescapably linked to his uselessness with his old dog
  • Portrayed as helpless, maltreated and ultimately cast aside
• Carlson


  • Embodies the detached migrant worker
  • Pressurizes Candy into having his dog shot
  • Carries out the killing with evident capability
  • Has no problem with destruction and unintentional cruelty
  • Owns the luger pistol that George later uses to kill Lenny
  • Represents the force of destruction that's key to modern capitalist USA
• American Dream


  • The idea that America would give up opportunities denied to people in their home countries
  • Some people who migrated to America did strike it rich, but many more lost their lives and savings in this futile quest
  • Represented by the ranch that George and Lenny want to have, a coalition that symbolizes capitalism in its purest form
  • Desire for work for themselves, material wealth, spiritual fulfillment, profit and independence
  • The Californian coastal valley where the action takes place is a small, confined, primitive place that is a dream farm and a recited Garden of Eden
  • Even before the story begins, the description of the valley suggests that paradise might already be spoiled
• George's relationship with Lenny


  • George is a radical leader attempting to lead Lenny, a symbol of the masses, to a utopia of owning a farm, but Lenny's destructiveness causes the utopia to fail
  • George is simply a worker trying to improve his lot in life by becoming a landowner, but this ambition collapses
  • From a psychoanalytical perspective, Lenny is George's shadow self, a scapegoat for his own faults
• Survival of the Fittest


  • Steinbeck's principal aim is to show that without the civilizing forces of companionship, we become almost like animals feeding off others and spurning the weak
  • Exemplified in the way characters represent varying forms of prejudice - physical disability, gender, racial, mental disability, social class
  • The story shows the power for society formed by nature's lower forces and the power that this has to destroy finer human aspiration
• Lenny


  • A large, simple-minded and clumsy character, his physical appearance is most like an animal
  • His fawning approach to Crooks is like a shy dog wanting to make friends
  • At the end, when George kills him, he is identified with Candy's old dog
• Curly and Carlson


  • Display the baser elements of nature, lacking sensitivity for the helpless and weaker
  • Curly is driven to constantly compete, epitomizing man's lower nature
  • Carlson pressurizes Candy into allowing him to shoot his dog, showing his animalistic nature
• George and Lenny


  • Embody the finest spirit that aspires and sustains human connections
  • Lenny's obsession with mice and rabbits represents his yearning for human warmth
  • George and Lenny have a human bond that could be classified as being in the spirit of the family
  • They travel together, have a history, responsibility and commitment to each other
• Candy hopes to become part of George and Lenny's family, and their rise above animal nature is consistent with their rise above mere self-gratification and concern for the shared future rather than animalistic survival from one day to the next