Lennie In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

If Lennie were living in today’s society, he would be treated more equally. In the 1930s during the time period of the book, Lennie was treated inferior to everyone else. Mentally challenged people dealt with abuse and cruel treatment . Although many were placed in institutions that were meant to help them, they were still treated poorly. When the patients were not in bed they were forced to labor long hours. Luckily Lennie had someone like

Part of Lennie’s character is being uneducated, and slow. Lennie is always forgetting important information. “Lenny looked timidly over to him.” “George?” Yeah, what ya want?” “Where we goin’, George?” “The little man jerked down the brim of his hat and scowled over at Lennie.” “So you forgot that awready, did you?” “I gotta tell you again do I? “Jesus Christ you’re a crazy bastard!” “I forgot,” Lennie said softly.(Page 4 of Mice and Men). As you can see this conversation of quotes proves many different points. First, it shows Lennie forgetting where him and George were

Lennie is mentally disabled and so always ‘does bad things’, because of this, he constantly depends on George to protect him and get him out of trouble. For example, in Weed, Lennie constantly ‘wants to touch

“Look, George. Look what I done” (Steinbeck, Pg. 3). Here Steinbeck gives us the idea that Lennie looks up to George in everything he does like a child does to his parents. Lennie can’t take of himself since he is mentally handicapped so we get an idea that even though they are just friends, George is like a father figure to Lennie. Also by the word choice in the dialogue we can see that Lennie communicates in a particular way like if he just learn to speak, therefore he could be compared as a child. “I wasn’t doin’ nothing bad with it, George. Jus’ strokin’ it.” Steinbeck uses dialogue to give us an idea of George’s strong personality. “Don’t let him pull you in-but- if the son of a bitch” This quote gives us the idea that George’s personality is very strong and defensive by the explicit language which shows us anger. Also it gives us a idea that even though he is strong and aggressive he cares about what happens to Lennie. This can relate to the link that he treats him like he is his

Throughout the novel Lennie is heavily discriminated against. He is different than the rest of the men that work on any of the farms. George tells Lennie to be quiet when meeting new bosses because he doesn’t want people to jump to conclusions about Lennie before they get a chance to see the work that he can do.””O.K. Now when we go in to see the boss, what you gonna do?” Lennie thought. His face got tight with thought. “I…. ain’t gonna say nothin’. Jus’ gonna stan’ there.” ”Good boy. That’s swell. You say that over two,three times so you sure won’t forget it,”” (6) George treats Lennie like he is a helpless little kid who can’t think for himself, so George always tells Lennie how to act or what to say. George wants to get the job and if he says the wrong thing about him and Lennie being together or why he won’t let him speak it could cost

Lennie small is a large strong, and un intelligent man. He rarely thinks for himself and can’t hold his own. He does not understand Who you can laugh at or when you can laugh which makes him not have any social awareness. Lennie also never learns throughout the course of this story. He never learns to stay away from some people. For All these reasons we are sympathetic for him.

First off, Lennie is discriminated for his actions, such as his love of handling soft objects. Lennie claims that he “Jus’ wanted to feel that girl's dress -- Jus’ wanted to pet it like it was a mouse…” then George

Lennie was left by his family at the beginning of the book. Lennie gets ridiculed by George because he does stupid things and makes very dumb mistakes. Through the historical lens, looking at Lennie is a good thing. There was so much history happening with people with mental disabilities. None of it was good but it was all history nonetheless. People would get sent to mental institutions and were treated very poorly. Most institutions underfed, hurt, and ridiculed man of the people in the institution. Lennie’s disability was that he had a mind of a third grader. He always wanted to touch nice things or have this or that. Throughout the whole book Lennie isn’t directly ridiculed but is ridiculed nonetheless. All these add in to the reason of Lennie’s

Lennie has a handicap that makes him slow to situations. He also does not understand how what he does can hurt people. “Don’t you even take a look at that bitch… I seen ‘em poison before, but I never seen no piece of jailbait worse than her. You leave her be” (Steinback 32). George is yelling at Lennie to stay away from Curley’s wife.

An' why? Because... because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why" (Steinbeck 15). This quote shows just how caring Lennie is to George and now it is shown that Lennie can very much show love. The depth of Lennie’s character revealed throughout the story shows that there is more than meets the eye.

John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men, is about two guys’ whom are everywhere together. In the beginning of this novel, George and Lennie, who are main characters, travel together. No matter where George went, Lennie was right there on his heels; the only place they didn’t go together was a cat house. George told Lennie multiple times that he wishes Lennie wasn’t with him -- he’s too much trouble! Once they got to the new ranch, they made friends in a way, they met people, Candy, Boss, Slim, and Curley.

In chapter four of the book, when all of the guys go to the brothel and Lennie goes to see Crooks, he asks Lennie to leave. Lennie replys by saying, “Ever’body went into town, Slim and George and ever’body. George says I gotta stay here an’ not get in no trouble” (Steinbeck 34) Here you can see that George doesn’t treat Lennie as an equal, he’s more taking care of him, he thinks of Lennie like a dog or something you have to constantly look after or it’s going to mess something up. This shows that every person in the book marginalizes Lennie, even George, someone who he sees as his closest friend treats him differently than everyone else.

As a result of Lennies short attention span and absence of focus aside from the exception of lovely delicate soothing things, he gets into inconvenience either on the grounds that he doesn't listen to guidelines and does the opposite of what hes told, and/or in light of the fact that he doesn't listen to people, for example; Curley thinks he is being ignorant deliberately for instance “What the hell you laughin’ at?” Lennie looked blankly at him, “Huh?” Lennie was in his own particular minimal world thinking about rabbits as Curley got all up in his face as he thought Lennie was ridiculing him. Thus due to his moderate thinking capacity he can't recognize right from wrong, and as a result of this he doesn't know the outcomes of his actions,

Like when Lennie and George were in weed Lennie wanted to touch the red dress the woman was wearing. When she started yelling he got scared and held it when he did let go she said she had been raped and were chased out of weed. Lennie does not change he is a static character he does not change in the story he has the same personality as the beginning. Lennie is also a really big man who has enormous strength, but since he is a numbskull all that strength is the danger to himself and others. Lennie has shown how strong he was by barley bucking and crushing curly hand with one movement. Since he is so strong and a simpleton, this trait hurts the character and gets him in trouble. Like when he accidentally killed Curley's wife when he cared when she started screaming when he was touching her hair. Lennie has been through a lot he thinks that George does not want him because he was a handful. Also, he says that if Lennie was not there he could, but what he wants and does what he wants.. Which is why at the end of the book he wanted to go to a cave so George would have to worry about him. When George found Lennie, he said that he was never mad at

Lennie has a lack of intelligence throughout the whole book. Lennie is not the brightest of them all, but he knows how to work and work hard. Lennie does not make decisions for himself, and when he does something unfortunate happens. For example, even though George is frustrated with Lennie George is concerned about his well-being if Lennie was left to his own devices. “I want you to stay with me, Lennie. Jesus Christ, somebody’d shoot you for a coyote if you were by yourself” (Steinbeck, p. 14). This quote means that if Lennie went to leave and go by himself he would get shot. His lack of intelligence affects the story by making George’s life harder. If Lennie does something by himself he gets in trouble like the time in Weeds. His lack of intelligence does not help him in any way. Lennie can’t answer questions for himself so George tells him not to say a word so he doesn’t mess up.