A* Sample Answers Of Mice and Men

Of Mice And Men Sample Exam Paper

(a)  Commentary on Curley’s wife speech and behaviour

Curley’s wife is introduced in this extract in quite a theatrical way. Steinbeck immediately draws attention to her loud and garish appearance (‘bright cotton dress’, ‘red ostrich feathers’). This makes her seem vain and superficial, but it also effectively puts us in the position of the ranch workers – we judge her based on her appearance.

Steinbeck emphasises her physical appearance (‘made-up’ ‘little sausage curls’) making it clear that she takes great pains to present herself well at all times. There is some irony to this – she is the only woman on the ranch and seems overdressed. We also sense that she is and feels out of place which makes us feel sympathy for her.

Steinbeck uses many theatrical techniques in presenting Curley’s wife in this extract. He uses speech (‘What you got there?) and body language (‘She knelt in the hay’) to show how Curley’s wife seeks to get close to Lennie. There is a tension to the way she is described – on the one hand she seems quite manipulative, trying to ‘draw’ Lennie, egging him on to fight with her husband, and trying to appeal to his emotional side, ‘I get awful lonely’. On the other hand, she behaves with compassion towards Lennie in trying to ‘console’ him for the loss of his dog, ‘The whole country is fulla mutts.’ In this way, the readers’ response to Curley’s wife is complex – we can see that she is devious but at the same time we are aware of the bleak isolation of her life on the ranch.

Steinbeck uses local American dialect to give a sense of how people at that time would have spoken. The use of slang ‘mutt’ is effective as it emphasises how poor Curley’s wife and the ranch workers are.  Steinbeck also uses variation in volume: ‘quietly’ ‘laughed’ to help change the mood of the extract from apparently light-hearted at the beginning to more serious and heavy.

Curley’s wife exhibits strong emotion when she discovers that the dog is dead – this is an effective dramatic technique as it highlights to the reader that Curley’s wife is feminine and sensitive.  It is a way of foreshadowing the later dramatic tragic events of the novel as we begin to recognise that Curley’s wife and Lennie himself are also treated as ‘mutts’ by the society. Overall Steinbeck portrays Curley’s wife in a way that arouses our sense of potential danger while attracting our sympathy for her vulnerable position in the ranch.

 (401 words)

Essay

Everyone in this novel is scared of each other. Show how Steinbeck creates an atmosphere of fear and suspicion in the novel.

                Fear and suspicion forms the backdrop of Of Mice and Men and seems to be at the heart of each characters’ emotional life. As a chronicler of the Great Depression, Steinbeck wrote Of Mice and Men to raise awareness of how desperate and hopeless the lives of migrant workers are, and one of the main ways that he does this is through exposing how the characters live in constant fear.

                One of Steinbeck’s main techniques in showing how fear dominates the characters’ lives is his use of the playable novel structure. Even though the workers technically have the ability to move around, their lives are restricted to three main scenes in the novel – the bunkhouse, the ranch and the river. The society at the time was unable to provide lasting freedom and security for men like George and Lennie and the use of the playable novel form with a very tight claustrophobic setting highlights this to the reader. It reinforces how the Dream that the characters have is never going to come true – there is no land for George and Lennie, they are stuck on their ranch. In fact throughout the novel, the dream land is depicted in biblical terms (‘fatta of the land’, ‘honey’) and described as as unattainable as heaven.  As Crooks says, ‘Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land’. It’s just in their heads’.  While there are poignant moments in the novel, such as at the end when the dream is described (‘No you tell it George – How I get to tend the rabbits’) the hope represented by the dream is continually undercut by the suspicion that it is a delusion.

                Steinbeck also uses foreshadowing skilfully to create an atmosphere of fear and suspicion. From the opening to the final pages, there are continual strong hints of impending tragedy, violence and danger. For example, the pathetic fallacy of the hot weather in the opening creates a sense of oppressiveness and creates an atmosphere where outbursts of anger or violence would seem appropriate (‘the evening of a hot day’). Furthermore there is the image of a snake which has sinister connotations and creates a sense of danger. This is then revisited in the final section of the novel, where the snake ‘with a periscope head’ is abruptly beheaded by a heron, foreshadowing how Lennie will fall prey to the harsh social realities of 1930’s America. Additionally, the death of Candy’s dog (‘I should never have let no stranger shoot my dog’) foreshadows Lennie’s death and Lennie’s inadvertent killing of the mice and the puppy foreshadows the way that he will kill Curley’s wife, leading to his own tragic downfall. Overall, the foreshadowing heightens the sense of tension in the novel and makes the reader fearful, as we sense that there is no possible escape for Lennie.

     

          Thirdly, Steinbeck uses the character of Curley’s wife to convey fear and suspicion. When Curley’s wife is first introduced the men are deeply suspicious of her, considering her to be ‘jailbait’ and a ‘tart’. They are also fearful that they will suffer Curley’s wrath if they are seen to be showing her too much attention.  Steinbeck highlights the garish and ostentatious aspects of Curley’s wife appearance ‘little fat sausage’ ‘red ostrich feathers’) continually which effectively puts the reader in the same position as the men – we judge her and consider her to be manipulate and self-seeking. When she is later revealed to be deeply afraid and despairing herself (‘I get so lonely’), our attitude changes and we feel some degree of guilt over the way that we mis-perceived her at the beginning. Steinbeck himself wrote ‘I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen’, and so it seems that he is using Curley’s wife to expose how wrong our assumptions can be about people, particularly people who feel trapped in the harsh social conditions in which they live. Candy’s wife as the only woman we meet in the novel, therefore becomes a powerful symbol for the plight of the forgotten women victimised by the 1930’s Great Depression. 

In this way, it is clear that the atmosphere of fear and suspicion is one of the main ways that Steinbeck seeks to win our sympathy for the struggling migrant workers of the 1930s through Of Mice and Men. At the end of the novel, George is clearly afraid to kill Lennie and is visibly trembling. In his fear however, he takes a step of great courage and it is this quality that Steinbeck wants to be celebrated. Therefore, he uses the pervading fear and suspicion of the novel to win not only our sympathy but also our admiration and respect.