Once Curley's wife is so cruel to him
"Do you know what I could do to you?" 80, he gives up on the dream
and says "I was just foolin'"
Chapter 5
See
think write questions
Curley’s
Wife: is she just cruel or is she suffering like
everyone else?
Why
does she always flirt?
Lennie: why does he kill Curley’s Wife? Can we hold him
responsible? What should be done about Lennie?
so quiet after he kills her "quiet" repeated over and over 92
What
foreshadowing has occurred hinting at Lennie killing
a person? "I should of knew" 94
Chapter 6
Suffering
of innocents: dog eat dog world. The heron kills the snake. Quiet, just
like when Lennie kills Curley's wife. The quiet world is not so peaceful,
disguises predators and death.
Why
does George kill Lennie? Was it the right decision?
Why or why not?
Kills to protect him from Curley (95)
it's a better death, a happy death. Just like Candy should have killed
his dog himself. Killing out of love is better than death by a mean,
uncompassionate stranger
In
the final telling of the dream, George give Lennie the dream. Lennie dies
thinking he's going to the rabbit farm and in a sense he is; he's going
to Heaven. At the same time, George must let the dream go and resigns himself
to a miserable existence just like all the other poor “bindle men” going
to place to place, with no goals, no happiness, no friendship, and no enjoyment
except the destructive one of blowing their money on drink, gambling, and
women. p. 94-95
Symbols
Candy’s
Dog
The
dead puppy
Dream
of the Rabbit Farm
Themes
Title: Of Mice and
Men
The
world is a cruel, predatory, inhospitable place where dreams cannot come
true and friendship cannot last
Men
are just like mice (or just like the water snake eaten by the heron), they
will be killed because of the predatory, cruel nature of the world they
live in
There
is no justice, no compassion, death is inevitable
The
grim lesson of human existence is that life is not fair and the innocent
will die, often will die young, sometimes the guilty will go free
Friendship
In
the cruel world, friendship is what sustains men
All
want a friend because no one has family
Most
are lonely and miserable wasting their money on drinking and gambling
Lennie and George see the truth that they are not like
other poor, wretched migrant workers who live a miserable life from paycheck
to paycheck, they are different because they have each other
In
the end, even this rare friendship is lost; it cannot survive in the cruel,
predatory world
With
the loss of their friendship, the American Dream is lost too
Impossibility of the American Dream
The
dream of living off of the “fatta the land” is
the one spark of happiness in George and Lennie’s
life.
The
dream pulls in Candy immediately, and even Crooks, the cynical one, eventually
In
the end, all dreams are crushed
Curley’s
Wife marries Curley instead of living her dream to be an actress
Crooks
tells Candy to forget that he wanted a place to hoe on the rabbit farm,
he was “just foolin’”
Strong vs. the Weak
Oppression
does not only come from the strong (Curley), but also from the weak (Crooks
and Curley’s wife)
Given
an opportunity to be cruel to someone else, the weak will be cruel just
as the strong were