Of Mice And Men 2 Essay Research

Paper

Of Mice and Men

George and Lennie are travelling workers who travel around ranches looking for work. Lennie is a big, coarse man yet he is mentally undeveloped and George is small yet is smarter, and therefore leads and takes care of Lennie. Lennie has a fetish for soft things and when he pets mice and small animals he, unknowingly kills them by squeezing too hard. The men s plan is to make enough money to settle on a nice, small place of their own and live off the fatta the land . The come to a new ranch to buck barley ands try to work up a stake and buy the place they always dreamed of. They live in a bunkhouse with several other workers. Curly, their boss, is a little guy who likes to start trouble with big guys like Lennie. Candy is an old worker on the ranch who befriends the two workers best.

Candy finds out about George s and Lennie s plan and asks them to get in on it. He tells them he has enough money in the bank for a down payment and that he would love to join them and work on small things around their place. They agree to work for a month to collect enough money and than to move into the little place they wanted to buy.

Later on of the worker s dog has puppies and he gives one to Lennie, to pet. Than, Curly picks a fight with Lennie for accidentally laughing at him which results in Curly s hand being hurt real bad. Than, one day Lennie accidentally kills his puppy from squeezing it too hard. At that same time, Curly s wife starts talking to Lennie and he grabs her without knowing it and breaks her neck. Than he realizes what he has done and runs away to where George told him to go if he was in trouble. When everyone finds out about this, they are furious, especially Curly who wants to kill Lennie. In the end, George steals a revolver, finds Lennie, and to put him out of his misery and to prevent him from suffering for killing Curly s wife shoots him in the neck.

Loneliness was a big part of this book. Loneliness was portrayed in most of the characters on the ranch. They were purposeless and alone, for the most part. Curly s wife spends most of her time alone running around the ranch. She doesn t love Curly and he s always out working or busy so she doesn t spend any time with him. Also, since Curly is so ill tempered, everyone on the ranch tries to stay away from his wife as much as possible to stay away from unnecessary trouble with Curly. Candy has friends on the ranch but he is truly alone with no family or close friends to look after him. He s old and has little time left. After his dog was shot, he felt lonelier than ever because the one thing really close to him that was always there with him was gone. Candy loathed for a place where he is wanted and where he doesn t have to answer to a boss, which is why he tried to get in on the little place with George and Lennie. Crooks is always alone because he s the colored man on the ranch. He sleeps in the saddle-barn and no one comes in there to talk to him. He lives alone so he never talks to anyone about life and non-ranch related things. Since he s a stable buck, everyone basically leaves him a lone because he gets very little respect as it is so they want to give him privacy and hardly ever socialize with him. George, although with Lennie, is often times lonely because of Lennie s mentality. George is always sacrificing himself and his happiness for the sake of dumb Lennie.