Lennie Character Analysis

The author, Steinbeck, uses his own personal experience to “serve as an inspiration…” (Johnson 1) when writing this particular story. His past experiences also helped him for the future. Lennie, of all characters, is the least dynamic. He undergoes a significant amount of change and develops throughout the story. He has been isolated with George throughout his life. His sole purpose in life is to make George happy and to own a farm with George and take care of the soft rabbits. Lennie is the most innocent and defenseless. He also is the largest and strongest, which does not help in certain situations. Lennie is the protagonist in the story. He gains the readers sympathy by his intellectual disability and helplessness. Lennie murders things by accident such as the mouse in his pocket, the puppy and Curley’s wife. He enjoys the touch of and somehow uses those murders and experiences to scare him from doing it again. George’s opinion means the most to him.

Steinbeck portrays Lennie to be very careless and irresponsible through the death of the mouse, the puppy and Curley’s wife. The death of the mouse foreshadows the death of the puppy and the death of Curley’s wife. Through the death of the mouse we see how Lennie is irresponsible for his actions. “They was so little,” he said apologetically. This shows that Lennie is taking

George eventually finds out about the death of Curley’s wife so he sets out and kills Lennie by the river. Lennie dies a gentle death, thinking only the happiest thoughts. The moment before he died, his mind is filled with their farm and there rabbits and there dream. Steinbeck reminds you that Lennie is still as gentle as he ever is, despite the fact that he killed

In the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Steinbeck makes Lennie a very sympathetic character because of his lack of intelligence, his kind heart and his large body type. In the book Of Mice and Men, 2 men Lennie and George search to find work so that one day they can accomplish the dream of owning a farm. Lennie and George go to do work on a ranch and they stay in a bunker with a couple other guys. Lennie and George's boss of the ranch is pretty tough on them and so is the boss's son Curley. Lennie and George hope that the dream of having their own plot of land will one day come true. Steinbeck was successful at making Lennie sympathetic because Lennie is A very affectionate person who does not like to hurt anyone and he really cares about other people.

In the book, Lennie likes to pet nice, soft things. In fact, him and George have to leave Weed because he is accused of sexual harassment for feeling a woman’s dress. After Curley’s wife allows Lennie to feel her hair, he will not let go, and due to his tremendous strength, he accidentally breaks her neck. There are many hints in the story that something like this will happen. “‘Jus’ wanted to feel that girl’s dress-jus’ wanted to pet it like it was a mouse-Well how the hell did she know you jus’ wanted to feel her dress? … She yells and we got to… sneak out in the dark and get outta the country. All the time somethin’ like that-all the time….’” (John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men, Chapter 1, Doc B). This quote from Of Mice and Men implies that Lennie gets into trouble often, and leads you to believe that he is bound to get into trouble sometime soon. Right before killing Curley’s wife, Lennie is too rough with a newborn puppy and kills it. “‘Lennie sat in the hay and looked at a little dead puppy that lay in front of him… And Lennie said softly to the puppy, ‘Why you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice. I didn’t bounce you hard… You wasn’t big enough, he said’. ‘They tol’ me and tol’ me you wasn’t. I di’n’t know you’d get killed so easy’” (John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men, Chapter 5, Doc B). Lennie’s strength is referenced many times throughout the novel. He kills mice, a puppy,

Lennie’s brute strength is one of the key elements in how Steinbeck foreshadows pivotal events in the novel. Firstly, George recounts the time where Aunt Clara gave Lennie pet mice in their younger days and George would “pinch their heads” and unfortunately die (page 11). Secondly, Lennie is sent to go pick up branches to fuel the fire (page 12). Thirdly, in the fight between Curley and Lennie, Curley’s hand is crushed by Lennie’s. Fourthly, the puppy dying from being petted too hard by Lennie and finally, Curley’s wife being killed through a broken spinal cord. These events support the idea that Lennie’s brute strength is his undoing and therefore proves that Steinbeck uses Lennie’s strength to foreshadow key events due to the fact that he harms nearly everything he touches and in most cases, he unintentionally kills it. This therefore gives a dark tone to the novel, with the constant theme of death lingering at every key event.

So for that it’s like he likes small animals and because of how big he is he tends to kill them even though he doesn’t mean to. ‘'That mouse aint fresh, Lennie; and besides, you’ve broke it pettin’ it.’’(Steinbeck pg.9) His obsession with mice’s is bad because of how big he is and how little they are so it is way easier for him to kill them meaning to or not meaning to. ‘’I,d pet ‘ em, and pretty soon they bit my fingers

He kept a mouse inside his pocket and when he took it out dead he couldn’t comprehend it. At the barn he got the puppy and he tried to sneak it into his bunk but got caught by George. Lennie knows he shouldn’t be doing that because George gets mad but he does it any way. Then later in the barn when Lennie is playing with the puppy and it died then Lennie said “Why do you got to get killed?”(pg.85)Lennie doesn’t understand he is bringing harm and actually killing these animals. As the novel goes on the things he is killing just get bigger and bigger. Lennie doesn’t understand the strength he has. He broke Curley’s hand just by blocking it. Lennie went to touch Curley’s wife's hair and he snapped her neck and die instantly. He doesn’t realize what he can do and when he did these things he never meant to harm anyone so he is a danger and has to have eyes on him at all

Throughout the whole book Lennie destroys many things mindlessly with out even thinking. Some of the things include killing many mice by crushing their skull, when he was only trying to pet them. Also, when Lennie was getting beat up by Curley, Lennie grabs his fist and he crushes it. Further on, after Lennie kills Curley’s wife, he can only think about not being aloud to tend the rabbits, not what he had just done. Before he had killed Curley’s wife, Lennie was sad and disappointed with himself, because he killed his pup.

In the end of the book Of Mice and Men, a man feels that he must kill his closest friend. George is the name of the character that kills his friend. His friend that he killed was named Lennie. Lennie is a very large man that had very serious mental issues. Once his aunt passed away, George decided to help Lennie. They have been a pair through the whole book. Lennie stands up for him when the boss’s son, Curley, comes and messes with him. He helps Lennie stay away from Curley’s wife, which acts like a tease for the men on the farm. Lennie enjoys when George describes their dream after they get more money. Their dream is to own their own farm and have their own animals. Lennie always wishes to tend to the rabbits once they do get the farm. At the end of the book, Lennie accidently kills a puppy that was given to him. He was talking to himself in the barn with the deceased puppy, when Curley’s wife stepped in. She was very kind to him and Lennie explained what happened. She offered Lennie to feel her hair and things went south after that. He ended up accidentally killing her as well. He gets scared because he knows what he has done is bad and he runs away. Curley gets the group of men together to go and hunt Lennie down. George ends up finding him before everyone else because earlier in the book, they discussed where Lennie should go if he gets into trouble. Lennie is thrilled when George shows up and while they are talking, he asks George if he can describe their dream for

First, Steinbeck makes Lennie’s mentality not as well as others. Lennie acts like a toddler throughout the story. He constantly forgets important information, looks out to George for help, and whines about certain situations. For example, when George learns that Lennie finds the dead mouse again, even after George throws it away, George hears “Lennie’s whimpering cry” (Steinbeck 10) when he throws it away for the second time. George sees “Lennie’s lip [quiver] and tears [start] in his eyes” (10) just because a dead mouse gets taken away from him. Lennie resembles a child in this scenario because of his sad emotions he expresses over an object that has little value to him. Lennie can also be compared to a kid when he wants to leave

We can also see Lennie as a victim; this is perhaps the most interesting trait of his personality for lots of different reasons. Interestingly, the words used to describe Curley’s fighting and struggle seem to be more violent than Lennie’s aggression, making Lennie seem the victim. The onomatopoeia usage of words such as “slashed” and “crashed” create the idea that Lennie is the one being hurt in this situation. Cross sectioning, the same description technique is used when Lennie is suffocating Curley’s wife. Words such as “battered” and “writhed” are used to initiate that even though Lennie is the one hurting, he is the victim none the less. Furthermore, Steinbeck writes that “Lennie watched in terror” as Curley’s hand crushed under his own, showing that even though he is doing it, he can’t control himself and does not want to be hurting him. Instantly, because of the description of the way he is acting, we feel sympathy for Lennie, and not the person he has hurt. Finally, we also can believe that Lennie is only ever violent through being invited or tricked into it. Firstly, with the mouse he kills he

He never learns his lesson and one day kills Curley’s wife which leads him to his own death. If Lennie had cared a little more about his own responsibility for the things he possessed then he could have been the caretaker of the rabbits on the farm George and him planned to purchase.

In the beginning of the novella, Lennie is portrayed as innocent and dependent on George. When Lennie had a mouse and George asked for it, Steinbeck describes Lennie’s reaction

Though his thoughts are innocent, Lennie's OCD leads him to actions that are not innocent. For instance, Lennie kills a mouse, but because George is the only "family" he has, Lennie lies to George about the mouse incident. "Ain't a thing in my pocket... "A mouse? A live mouse?" "Uh-uh. Jus' a dead mouse, George. I didn' kill it. Honest! I found it. I found it dead" (Steinbeck, 7). Lennie doesn't want to confess to George that he killed the mouse because Lennie thinks of George as his "family" and doesn't want to lose him. But, he also doesn't want to lose the comforting feeling of petting animals. In addition, Lennie innocence is shown when Lennie gets caught killing the dog, when he goes to the barn to stroke it. "Lennie stroked the pup back and forth...Lennie said, "Maybe if I took this pup out and throwed him away George wouldn't never know. An' then I could tend the rabbits without no trouble..." (Steinbeck, 86 and 87). Lennie's tries to lie to George about not killing the dog, but his actions of going to the barn alone, and George finding out, shows his action not innocent.