Of Mice and Men

Lenny is mentally challenged, what we might today call severe ADHD with a psychopathic twist. His friend George facilitates Lenny's dealing with a world he would otherwise struggle in. But this “facilitation” leads to a death, which requires George to to protect himself, by killing Lenny, who would otherwise have to deal with a criminal legal system that would ultimately see him executed.

Steinbeck’s opening scene is wonderfully visually descriptive and forms an elegant set-up bracket for the ending scene.

It is a short story that captures the fragility of the American Dream through compelling characters and themes of loyalty, loneliness, and the American condition.

How can one not love this book? The sensitivity with which Steinbeck renders his lead characters, broody, sensitive George, and childlike, powerful Lenny, is unparalleled. The reader can’t help but love them and feel their pain as their dreams inevitably slip away from their grasp.

The only fitting ending for this masterpiece is Steinbeck’s heartrending ending, foreshadowed throughout the book.  It will leave you in tears, but make you a better person in the process.

This classic novel is, if you think about it, absolutely about refugees – or to be specific, economic migrants, or more specifically, and because they travel within one country (the United States), they are IDPs – Internally Displaced Persons.

So many possible labels – put simply, they are the Dispossessed. Of Mice and Men is a story, set during the American Depression, of two migrant workers, George Milton and Lennie Small, who travel from job to job, sustained by their devotion to one another and by Lenny’s dream of owning a farm and looking after rabbits on it.

The book… show more.

Of Mice and Men engages the reader in a rich observation of the phrase “desperate times call for desperate measures” and leaves nothing unexplored, uncovered nor unmentioned.

Rought with life’s destruction of dreams, the prevelation of hope and the beautiful misplacement of innocence, I would always argue that this is Steinbeck’s best and most underappreciated work.

I fought against recommending this because it’s so well-read. However, when I think back to my favorite reads, this one stays near the top.

The cliché, “the characters jump off the page” were made for this fabulous novel. It didn’t take a movie for readers to hear Lenny and George. The writing puts you right in their space. I could read this book over and over, and still tear up when George says, “Tell me ‘bout the rabbits, George.”

You feel George’s pain sear right through your bones when the inevitable becomes necessary.

This wonderful book reminds anyone with a disability that no matter what others say, they have a right to be themselves. 

In addition, it shows that we should not judge people's philosophy on life as everyone goes through a different journey but ultimately brings it all together with acceptance and diversity. 

This story was not only an inspiration to me but an experience as well. A classic tale of dreams, loneliness, and unlikely companionship.

George and Lennie are two displaced migrant ranch workers searching for job opportunities during the Great Depression. George is a small, intelligent man that dreams of independence and looks after Lennie, a large, imposing giant with a severe learning disability.

After Lennie commits an awful act that he can’t quite comprehend, Lenny is forced to take justice into his own hands.

My favorite John Steinbeck novel is Grapes of Wrath, but for pure character development, I have to choose this heart-wrenching classic. For me, Of Mice and Men is a singularly brilliant piece of writing. In only six chapters, Steinbeck creates characters in Lenny and George that are so real, so lifelike they have become a staple in dynamic characterization. Any writer who wants to learn how to draw living characters should study this novella because this is the pinnacle of how character development should be done. And for the reader, there is no more gutting scene than the final… show more.