The novel begins near the Salinas River, south of Soledad in the California valley. The Gabilan Mountains rise up on one side and drop to valleys on the other. The river and its banks are alive with animals and plants. A path leads to the banks of the river, and the two main characters, George Milton and Lennie Small, follow this path to the river. While George is small with sharp features, Lennie is a big man with rounded features. He drags his feet when he walks, following George step for step. They are on their way to a job at a nearby ranch, and their ride has left them several miles away. It is hot and they are tired from the walk.
Topic Tracking: Landscape 1
Topic Tracking: Animal (Lennie as an animal) 1
When the two men reach the water, Lennie falls to his knees and takes a long drink. George gets angry with him for drinking so fast from water that might not be good. Lennie's action and this exchange show his mental retardation. When George sits down, Lennie imitates him exactly. And when George starts to complain about how their ride left them so far from their destination, Lennie has to ask George where they are going because he can't remember. George, annoyed, reminds Lennie about where they got their jobs and their work cards, and Lennie looks in his pocket for his. Certain Lennie would lose it, George did not let him keep his card. But Lennie does have something in his coat pocket. It is a dead mouse, which Lennie wanted to keep and pet. Lennie loves to pet such soft things, but he is so strong he usually kills them. It is not important to Lennie that the mouse is dead, but George is annoyed. Lennie reluctantly gives him the mouse, and George throws it across the water. George then asks Lennie if he remembers where they are going, but he has forgotten again. George tells him it is a job like the one they had in Weed. George tells Lennie not to say anything when they get to this new job, and Lennie repeats the instructions softly to himself. It's important that he remember because George wants to avoid trouble like they had in Weed. Also, if the boss heard Lennie's slow speech they could lose their jobs.
Topic Tracking: Animal (Lennie as an animal) 2
The sun is starting to set. George and Lennie are still by the river. Lennie wants to know why they aren't going ahead to the ranch for supper. George answers that he wants some rest before work starts. He has beans for them to eat, and he sends Lennie to get some wood for a fire. Instead of getting wood, Lennie sneaks off to find his mouse, hoping for something soft to pet. George isn't fooled, and demands the mouse. Lennie reluctantly gives it to him, and George throws it away again. Lennie starts to cry, and George feels sorry for being so mean. He promises Lennie when they find a live mouse he'll let him keep it awhile. Still upset, Lennie wishes the lady who used to give him mice was here. This woman was Lennie's Aunt Clara, but Lennie is not able to remember much, including his aunt's name. Aunt Clara stopped giving Lennie mice because he would always kill them. He is just too strong to play with something so delicate. Lennie thinks rabbits would be much better, because they're bigger. George tells Lennie to forget about rabbits and go get wood so they can eat. When they start to eat, Lennie says how he likes his beans with ketchup. George yells:
"'Well, we ain't got any,' George exploded. 'Whatever we ain't got, that's what you want. God a'mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an' work, an' no trouble....An' whatta I got,' George went on furiously. 'I got you! You can't keep a job and you lose me ever' job I get. Jus' keep me shovin' all over the country all the time. An' that ain't the worst. You get in trouble. You do bad things and I got to get you out.'" Chapter 1, pg. 11.
Topic Tracking: Animal (Lennie as an animal) 3
It is dark now, and George has become quiet. Lennie creeps over and apologizes for asking for ketchup, and says if there was any here he would give it all to George. George is all Lennie has, and he can't stand having him angry with him. George forgives Lennie, and becomes friendlier. But Lennie isn't convinced. He offers to go off alone and find a cave. He would live alone and find his own food, and if he got a mouse no one would take it away. George knows Lennie isn't smart enough to do this, and he feels bad for pushing Lennie to this suggestion. To cheer Lennie up, he promises him a pup. But Lennie keeps up this talk, making George feel bad so he will tell him again about the rabbits. The rabbits are part of a dream the men have. They hope one day to buy a farm and raise their own food and animals. Lennie is very excited because there will be rabbits for him to tend (and pet). They have faith their dream will come true because they aren't alone in the world. They have each other, and that means there is always someone looking out for them, and someone they can talk to.
Topic Tracking: Friendship 1
Topic Tracking: Dreams 1
George reminds Lennie not to say a word tomorrow, and that if there is any trouble, to come back to this spot and hide in the brush. He warns Lennie that if he isn't good, he won't get to tend the rabbits.
From the opening of the novella to George instructing Lennie in preparation for their arrival at the ranch (nightfall).
Summary
The story opens with the description of a riverbed in rural California, a beautiful, wooded area at the base of “golden foothill slopes.” A path runs to the river, used by boys going swimming and riffraff coming down from the highway. Two men walk along the path. The first, George, is small, wiry, and sharp-featured, while his companion, Lennie, is large and awkward. They are both dressed in denim, farmhand attire.
As they reach a clearing, Lennie stops to drink from the river, and George warns him not to drink too much or he will get sick, as he did the night before. As their conversation continues, it becomes clear that the larger man has an intellectual disability, and that his companion looks out for his safety. George begins to complain about the bus driver who dropped them off a long way from their intended destination—a ranch on which they are due to begin work. Lennie interrupts him to ask where they are going. His companion impatiently reminds him of their movements over the past few days, and then notices that Lennie is holding a dead mouse. George takes it away from him. Lennie insists that he is not responsible for killing the mouse, that he just wanted to pet it, but George loses his temper and throws it across the stream. George warns Lennie that they are going to work on a ranch, and that he must behave himself when they meet the boss. George does not want any trouble of the kind they encountered in Weed, the last place they worked.
George decides that they will stay in the clearing for the night, and as they prepare their bean supper, Lennie crosses the stream and recovers the mouse, only to have George find him out immediately and take the mouse away again. Apparently, Lennie’s Aunt Clara used to give him mice to pet, but he tends to “break” small creatures unintentionally when he shows his affection for them, killing them because he doesn’t know his own strength. As the two men sit down to eat, Lennie asks for ketchup. This request launches George into a long speech about Lennie’s ungratefulness. George complains that he could get along much better if he didn’t have to care for Lennie. He uses the incident that got them chased out of Weed as a case in point. Lennie, a lover of soft things, stroked the fabric of a girl’s dress, and would not let go. The locals assumed he assaulted her, and ran them out of town.
With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us.
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After this tirade, George feels sorry for losing his temper and apologizes by telling Lennie’s favorite story, the plan for their future happiness. The life of a ranch-hand, according to George, is one of the loneliest in the world, and most men working on ranches have no one to look out for them. But he and Lennie have each other, and someday, as soon as they manage to save enough money, they will buy a farm together and, as Lennie puts it, “live off the fatta the lan’.” They will grow their own food, raise livestock, and keep rabbits, which Lennie will tend. This familiar story cheers both of them up. As night falls, George tells Lennie that if he encounters any trouble while working at the ranch, he is to return to this clearing, hide in the bushes, and wait for George to come.
Analysis
The clearing into which Lennie and George wander evokes Eden in its serenity and beauty. Steinbeck wisely opens the novella with this idyllic scene, for it creates a background for the idealized friendship between the men and introduces the romanticized dream of farm life that they share. The opening pages establish a sense of purity and perfection that the world, which will prove to be cruel and predatory, cannot sustain. Steinbeck also solidly establishes the relationship between George and Lennie within the first few pages of dialogue. Their speech is that of uneducated laborers, but is emotionally rich and often lyrical.
Read more about why George and Lennie travel together.
Because George and Lennie are not particularly dynamic characters (neither of them changes significantly during the course of the narrative), the impression the reader gets from these early pages persists throughout the novella. Lennie’s and George’s behavior is relatively static. Lennie’s sweet innocence, the undying devotion he shows George, and his habit of petting soft things are his major defining traits from the opening pages to the final scene. Just as constant are George’s blustery rants about how much easier life would be without the burden of caring for Lennie, and unconvincing speeches that always end by revealing his love for and desire to protect his friend.
Read more about George and Lennie as the protagonists of the story.
Some critics of the work consider George, and especially Lennie, somewhat flat representations of purity, goodness, and fraternal devotion, rather than convincing portraits of complex, conflicted human beings. They charge Steinbeck with being excessively sentimental in his portrayal of his protagonists, his romanticization of male friendship, and in the deterministic plot that seems designed to destroy this friendship. Others, however, contend that any exaggeration in Of Mice and Men, like in so many of Steinbeck’s other works, is meant to comment on the plight of the downtrodden, to make the reader sympathize with people who society and storytellers often deem unworthy because of their class, physical or mental capabilities, or the color of their skin.
Read more about why Steinbeck chose the title of his novella.
Whether or not these issues constitute a flaw in the novella, it is true that Steinbeck places George, Lennie, and their relationship on a rather high pedestal. Nowhere is this more clear than in the story George constantly tells about the farm they one day plan to own. This piece of land represents a world in which the two men can live together just as they are, without dangers and without apologies. No longer will they be run out of towns like Weed or be subject to the demeaning and backbreaking will of others. As the novella progresses and their situation worsens, George and Lennie’s desire to attain the farm they dream about grows more desperate. Their vision becomes so powerful that it will eventually attract other men, who will beg to be a part of it. George’s story of the farm, as well as George and Lennie’s mutual devotion, lays the groundwork for one of the book’s dominant themes: the idealized sense of friendship among men.
Read more about George and Lennie’s farm as a symbol.
True to the nature of tragedy, Steinbeck makes the vision of the farm so beautiful and the fraternal bond between George and Lennie so strong in order to place his protagonists at a considerable height from which to fall. From the very beginning, Steinbeck heavily foreshadows the doom that awaits the men. The clearing into which the two travelers stumble may resemble Eden, but it is, in fact, a world with dangers lurking at every turn. The rabbits that sit like “gray, sculptured stones” hurry for cover at the sound of footsteps, hinting at the predatory world that will finally destroy Lennie and George’s dream. The dead mouse in Lennie’s pocket serves as a potent symbol of the end that awaits weak, unsuspecting creatures. After all, despite Lennie’s great physical size and strength, his childlikeness renders him as helpless as a mouse.
Read more about the tragic and heavy tone of the story.
Steinbeck’s repeated comparisons between Lennie and animals (bears, horses, terriers) reinforce the impending sense of doom. Animals in the story, from field mice to Candy’s dog to Lennie’s puppy, all die untimely deaths. The book’s tragic course of action seems even more inevitable when one considers Lennie’s troublesome behavior that got George and Lennie chased out of Weed, and George’s anticipatory insistence that they designate a meeting place should any problems arise.
Read more about animal metaphors and similes describing Lennie.