Mice and Men

Mattias Thuresson
Book report
John Steinbeck’s “Of mice and men”
George and Lennie, two desolate drifters, walk from farm to farm to find at least a few days of work. This time, they are heading for a farm in the Salinas Valley 100 miles south of San Francisco. Their last job was at the Weed Farm, which they had to leave quite suddenly since Lennie became too interested in a girl’s dress.
George is described as small and quick with dark complexion, thin and slender. Lennie is his opposite, huge with large, pale eyes, dragging his feet with his arms hanging down. George has to do the thinking for both of them since Lennie is simple-minded. They walk the roads and work the fields together.
The Salinas Valley was an area well known to Steinbeck, since he grew up there. It provides the setting for many of his novels, e.g. The grapes of wrath. Many of his novels of the 1930s are about the poor rural underclass in California.
Knowing his radical views, one is tempted to interpret the novel as an allegory for the futility of the dreams of young labourers. Lennie’s dream in life is to take care of puppies and bunnies, but with his big strong hands he always accidentally breaks their necks. Time and time again he asks George to describe the small cottage that they some day will have together and the bunnies he will attend to there. George’s dream is to have his own homestead, just large enough to support him and Lennie. He knows a place with ten acres they can buy for six hundred dollars, and believes that he and Lennie can save $100 a month if they don’t spend any of it. But he does not realise that this is all a dream, since Lennie isn’t able to face the responsibilities that come with a small farm. All that Lennie wants to do is pet his animals. It would be hard work for two grown men to survive. But George would have to take the responsibility himself since Lennie can not be trusted to take any initiatives. “He can’t think of nothing to do himself, but he sure can...