John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men'

Dr Senarath Tennakoon

John Steinbeck born in 1902 in Sulin, California graduated in 1919 from high school and attended Stanford University. But he could not complete his education. He took a number of odd jobs like working as a clerk and worked in a cafe etc. But he was a passionate reader and he determined to be a writer. In 1924 he published two stories in 'Stanford Spectator'.

He read Russian French and Spanish classics and kept abreast of the significant current literature. His first novel 'Cup of Gold' was published in 1929.... His other famous novels were, 'The Red Pony (1938), 'The Long Valley' (1939), Grapes of Wrath (1940). 'The Log from the Sea of Cortez' (1942), 'The Moon is Down (1942), Lifeboat (1944); The Pearl (1945) 'The Wayward Bus' (1947) 'Burning Bright' (1950), 'The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951), 'East of Eden' (1952), 'Sweet Thursday' (1954), 'Once There Was a War' (1958), 'Travels With Charley' (1960) and 'The Winter of Our Discontent' (1961). In 1963 John Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. His 'Of Mice and Men' and 'The Grapes of Wrath' were released as films in 1939 and 1940 respectively. For 'The Grapes of Wrath' he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. His 'Of Mice and Men' was published in 1937 and it was successfully dramatized.

It won the Drama Critics Award in the same year. The title of this novel is taken from Robert Burn's famous poem; 'To a Mouse, On Turning her up with the Plough' in November 1765.

There is no political focus in 'Of Mice and Men', but a social consciousness spreads about the unsettled social and economic background of the story contained in it. Two agricultural workers, Lennie and George join to work at a ranch. At the bunkhouse they are greeted by an old man Candy who has only one hand. The boss of the ranch is angry with them for they have come late than expected. They meet the boss's son Curly who is recently married. He is suspicious of his pretty young wife. Then there is a person called Carlson who is a ranch hand. He objects to the smell of Candy's dog and shoots it with the approval of Slim, the 'prince of the ranch', 'the jerk line skinner'.

Lennie is a giant like strong man. But he is a fool who is fond of animals like dogs. George is a small made man, intelligent and advises Lennie to behave and work diligently as possible. George has a dream to start a business of his own by saving some money from working in the ranch.

He also influences Lennie to join his scheme in his imagination. Once Curley attacks Lennie suspecting him to be friendly with his wife. But Lennie crushes Curly's hand. Slim comes in between them and because of him; Curly has to say that his hand got crushed in a machine. There is a negro called Crooks who is the stable buck. Curley's wife comes to the segregated quarters of Crooks when others are also there and wants to know what happened to her husband's crushed hand.... and threatens them that she would get the culprit strung up on a tree.

In another episode Lennie kills one of his pups and hides it in the hay. Shortly afterwards Curley's wife comes there and she tells Lennie of the frustrated life with Curley. But Lennie while trying to love her she screams.

Lennie breaks her neck and hides her body in the hay and disappears. George finds out the brush where Lennie is hiding. He shoots at Lennie and kills him. The plot of this novel is straightforward and its structure is uncomplicated.

There are no separate chapters, but there are episodes that occur in the workplace.

The characters are not many. George and Lennie dominate in the short list of characters. They are good friends but they are different in physical form, intelligence and character. George is a nomad type character who has nothing of his own and going from one ranch and bunkhouse to another. He is a day dreamer.

He lives with his dream of building a bright future of his own. He tries to protect his friend Lennie as he needs him to be successful in his realizing his dream.

He tries to protect Lennie from provocation situations but fails in the last instance. So he had to kill his friend. Candy and Slim are two contrasting characters. Slim is intelligent. He understands George's affinity to Lennie. He orders the killing of Candy's dirty smelling dog in order to save troubles arising among the workers. George, on the other hand sees the end of his dream when Lennie kills Curleys wife.

Crooks is a negro and Steinbeck carves him as separated from others, lonely and inferior and isolated because of his colour. He is an underpriviledge outsider in a small white community.

Although Crooks is intelligent he has no opportunities for the flowering of his talents. Curley, the boss's son is a timid suspicious character. His wife lives an unhappy life with Curley. She is called a 'tart' and acts like one, appearing in the bunkhouse whenever there are young people giving an eye to every one pretending to be looking for her husband. She is cheap, seductive pathetic and ironically, death restores to her face to the girlhood she had lost in her life (Handley, 2003).

The main theme in this novel is to show the differences in the emotional nature of the human subject in a similar physical setting. Every individual is different from one another although they move around in a common physical setting.

They think and act differently. There is a sense of loneliness and insecurity and the need for human companionship among the workers in the ranch. Even Curley's wife is yearning for human love and companionship. The negro Crooker too well-knows that Lennie is a dangerous man, but he keeps company with him despite their colour differences. There are also physical differences in the characters; Lennie is a giant of a man. George is a small made man. Crooker has a crooked spine and Candy has only one hand. Curly is obsessed and fidgety and he has a chip on his shoulder. The emotional aspects of their words are quite different. In particular George lives in an imagined future world.

The style adopted by Steinbeck clearly fits into the expression made by George Eliot that 'the medium in which the character moves'. Steinbeck cleverly describes and creates the atmosphere of the ranch where the incidents and episodes occur in this novel. He has superbly made the natural environment for his characters. His language is figurative with metaphor, smile and personification and onomatopoeia.