Of Mice And Men Chapter Summary

The story Mice and Men is about two men named George and Lennie. They go through rough times together and always keep each other out of trouble, but make trouble together at the same time. They find work at a ranch where they meet new characters and situations.

Over the course of the novella, George’s attitude towards Lennie changes from impatience, controlling, to sympathy.

Two hours after George killed Lennie, George was at the bar with Curley and Slim to get a drink, and the three began talking about Lennie, making George start to think if he had done the right thing by shooting Lennie in the head. After the three left the bar, George walked out onto the street and saw Curley's wife walking down the street. George decided to shrug it off and told himself that it was all part of his imagination, and George returned to his house. Three years later, George had built the house by the lake that Lennie had wanted, and George had buried Lennie's body in the backyard. Later, George had decided to go to the bar to get a drink, when he got to the bar he saw Slim and Carley, and Curley's wife all talking with each other. When the group saw George, he was in awe "I thought that Lennie killed you..." he said to Curley's wife, Curley replied excitedly "Nope, i'm not sure how but she is alive!" George was still confused, then Slim said "Stop asking so many questions and come have a drink" George had then began thinking about how the only reason he killed Lennie was because Lennie went too far to save by killing Curley's wife. After that, George had began disconnecting himself with the rest of the group because he had become depressed after he had learned that Lennie wasn't a murderer. Just as George was thinking about how he shouldn't have killed Lennie, he heard a knock on his door, and he went to see who it was, Curley's wife was at the door with Slim, and both were looking sad. George had opened the door for them, and said "What happened?" Curley's wife looked back at him, and informed him that Curley had been murdered. George beckoned the two inside is house, and said "Come in, do either of you want anything to drink?" Curley's wife shook her head Slim walked her inside. The three sat down at a table in George's house "Tell me what happened" George said nervously, Curley's wife replied, "I was having an argument with Curley and he had gotten angry and stormed off, later, when i went looking for him, I found him in the ranch, with an axe wound in his head." Curley's wife started crying and Slim looked at George, "She came to me and told me the story, then asked

GEORGE - “No—look! I was jus’ foolin’, Lennie. ‘Cause I want you to stay with me. Trouble with mice is you always kill ‘em.”

To begin, Lennie provides George with a sense of family and companionship during their journey. George becomes

12-13) George has every reason to be frustrated with Lennie, but it is still sad to see that Lennie is disappointed in himself for frustrating George. Lennie tells George that if he does not want to look after him anymore then he will go and live in the mountains by himself. (Pg. 14.

How does steinbeck use foreshadowing? By seth springs Often the best laid schemes of mice and men go astray. In the story of mice and men the two main characters george and lennie are migrant workers looking for a job they go to this ranch and work as farm hands they meet carlson candy slim crooks and curley's wife. Curly doesn't like lennie because he’s tall eventually he gets into a fight with lennie and lennie crushes his hand.

the ending of the novel. In chapter five of the novel, Lennie finds himself in more trouble

In the book Of Mice and Men George and Lennie are good friends who travel from ranch to ranch looking for work. Lennie has a mental illness and is always getting into trouble. At the end of the book, George decides to shoot Lennie before the people back on the ranch get to him. Many people would argue whether George made the right decision when he decided to do this. George made the right decision to shoot Lennie because he would’ve been a danger to others, would’ve been locked up and tortured, and wouldn’t have wanted to go to a mental institution in the 1930s.

In the beginning of the book, the two characters are sitting at the edge of a small creek. Lennie asks George to talk about what living on their own little piece of land will be like. George explains all of the things they’ll have and then stops abruptly and says, “I ain’t got time for no more.” (Doc C) George believes that they’ll never get the land some way or another and that the idea is so far fetched. This is foreshadowing that they won't get the land later in the book. Later in the story, one of their bunk mates named Crooks doesn't believe they'll get the land. He says, “ Hundreds of them. They come, an’ go on; an’ every damn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it….” (Doc c) Crooks thinks that Lennie and George are one of those hundred men who had a dream of living on their own piece of land, but never getting it. What crooks said foreshadows the loss of the farm dream at the end of the book. John Steinbeck foreshadows the loss of the farm dream by George's and Crooks

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,

Reaching into his pocket to find his work card, Lennie brings the fact the he has been carrying a dead mouse with him to the attention of George, the other main protagonist. He has been petting this mouse corpse in his pocket as they walked along the highway but maintains that “Honest! I found it. I found it dead," and that he only has it with him because "I could pet it with my thumb while we walked along." This eventually leads to the discussion of how, as a child, he often accidentally killed pet mice given to him by petting them too hard. He explains himself, “I'd pet 'em, and pretty soon they bit my fingers and I pinched their heads a little and then they was dead-because they was so little.” This conversation tells the reader that Lennie’s simple, childlike, state of mind leads him to act on impulse, and often violently. The amount of detail in this example of foreshadowing lets the reader predict what an important theme this violence will

At the beginning of the novel when the reader is first introduced to George and Lennie, they are first described as in “The first man was small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp, strong features. Behind him walked his opposite, a huge man, shapeless of face, with large pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders; and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws”(Steinbeck 2). Together they sat at a bank and drank some water from the not moving green pool. For a long while together they walked four miles from where there bus dropped them off. Lennie's aunt Clara passed away and since he wasn’t smart enough to live in the world they lived in George said “Your Aunt Clara wouldn’t want you running off by yourself, even if she is dead”(Steinbeck 13). When candy got his dog put down he regretted not doing it himself. After Lennie killed Curley’s wife and ran off, George knew that moment, when he saw her dead, that he was going to kill Lennie himself because he was his best friend. George came quickly out of a bush to find

George sees possible complications in the future and gives Lennie advice about what he must do in order to help their future. While George can be rational, he also gets frustrated and angry with Lennie because he can’t control his strength. An example being when Lennie killed the mouse and kept it in his pocket and lied to him about having it there "What'd you take outa that pocket?", "Ain't a thing in my pocket”. George's anger quickly goes away when he remembers Lennie's innocence and that he can’t remember things clearly.

Falling Action: George says he wants Lennie to stay with him. He comments that ranch workers are always lonely, but he and Lennie are different because they have one another.