Of Mice and Men Summary and Analysis

Section 1 Summary

The novel opens with the description of a riverbed in rural California. It is a beautiful, wooded area at the base of “golden foothill slopes.” Two men are walking down a path near the pool. Both are dressed in denim jackets and trousers and wearing “black, shapeless hats,” which is the typical farmhand attire. They are carrying blanket rolls, or bindles, on their shoulders. The smaller, wiry man is George Milton and behind him, the huge man with large eyes, walking like a huge bear, is Lennie Small.

Lennie drops near the pool and starts drinking the water thirstily. George cautions him not to drink that water as he may fall sick. After Lennie is done drinking, George asks him about the upcoming job. Lennie doesn’t recall the slightest details about the upcoming prospect. George reminds him that they have received work cards from Murray and Ready’s. As the conversation continues, it is clear that Lennie suffers from an intellectual disability, and George watches out for him. The two men are headed toward a ranch nearby where they are seeking jobs. George notices that Lennie is holding a dead mouse. He takes it away from him. Lennie insists that he was only petting it and is not responsible for killing it. George gets angry and throws it away, and reminds Lennie that he has to behave when they meet the boss. He doesn’t want the kind of trouble they had in Weed, which is the last place they worked at.

George decides to spend the night at the clearing, and they prepare a bean supper. Lennie sneaks away and crosses the stream to retrieve the dead mouse. George catches him again and throws it away. Lennie doesn’t seem to know his own strength—when he was with Aunt Clara, she would give him mice to pet, but he would break these small creatures.

As the two men sit down for dinner, Lennie asks for ketchup, which infuriates George who starts a speech about Lennie’s ungratefulness. He wishes that he doesn’t have to assume his friend’s responsibility. He refers to what had happened at Weed where Lennie, in his love for soft things, had caught on to the dress of a girl. When he wouldn’t let go, the locals assumed he was trying to molest her. The two men had to run away from the town.

When Lennie starts feeling worthless at being chided, George feels guilty. He apologizes, and the two men start talking about their mutual dream of owning land. George mentions how the life of a ranch hand is one of the loneliest in the world; they have nobody looking out for them. But the two men are lucky as they have each other. Together they will achieve their dream and “live off the fatta the lan,” as Lennie says. As they discuss this, the men feel more positive and cheerful. Before going to sleep, George tells Lennie to return to this clearing, and hide and wait for George to arrive should Lennie ever get into trouble at the ranch.

Section 1 Analysis

The first chapter accomplishes several things simultaneously. It sets the tone and environment of the story’s location, adds imagery, introduces the two main characters, and foreshadows later events in the story. All of this is accomplished with careful consideration of word choices. When the story opens, the setting is a few miles south of Soledad, California, near the Salinas River. “Soledad” is a Spanish word that means “loneliness” or “solitude,” which is a reference to one of the dominant themes of the novel. The introductory scene is also serene, almost idyllic, and is reminiscent of Edenic beauty. The description paints a picture of an environment so pure and perfect that it is an apt setting for the romanticized dream of owning the farmland that the two men share. However, this perfect setting cannot be sustained, as the world is a cruel place. The clearing into which the two men stumble may resemble Eden, but there is danger there at every turn. The rabbits that sit like “gray, sculptured stones” hide quickly when they hear footsteps, wary about the predators, hinting thereby at the predatory world that will destroy George and Lennie’s dream eventually. The dead mouse in Lennie’s pocket is symbolic of the doomed fate that awaits unsuspecting creatures.

The two main characters are first described physically. They are dressed similarly, but their physiques are starkly different. The small and wiry George is the one watching out for Lennie, who though frequently complains about this responsibility. However, theirs is an ideal friendship, where they seem to have traveled together for years and miles. Each adds to the character of the other. Lennie’s vision of nature is barely realistic. He has no notion of the cruelty that exists in the world and would be barely able to feed himself without George’s aid. However, he balances George out, who sees the world with suspicion. Where George sees only darkness, Lennie sees only light. Their shared dream of owning land is representative of a space where they can be their true self—they don’t have to run away as they did from Weed. This is the classic description of the American Dream—of owning land, of being independent, of having material possessions and being secure, and, in general, where they can run their own lives. What George doesn’t realize is how potentially dangerous Lennie can be. While Lennie’s transgressions have been relatively minor so far, it would be his enormous strength and his fondness for petting soft things that would spell his doom.

While Lennie might be strong, his childlike demeanor renders him as helpless as a mouse. In fact, animals in the story, from field mice to Candy’s dog to Lennie’s puppy, tend to die untimely deaths. Further, Steinbeck uses the animal imagery frequently to describe Lennie—his hands are described as paws; he snorts like a horse at the stream and circles like a terrier when he is unwilling to bring the mouse to George. The animal imagery together with his intellectual disability almost suggests that Lennie is like an animal—loveable but unaware of his strength as well as not clever enough to fit into civilized society. The title itself foreshadows the events that unfold and the ultimate tragedy that will befall the two men.

A few critics have argued that Steinbeck’s protagonists in this novel are flat, unidimensional characters, who are portrayed as good, pure, and devoted to each other. There is no complexity in these characters, and they continue to remain so at the end of the novel. Others contend that if there is any exaggeration in the narrative it is meant to highlight the plight of the downtrodden and make society empathize with characters who are often deemed unworthy of having a story because of their class, intellectual prowess, or skin color.