Of Mice and Men Key Ideas

Key ideas to weave into your essays:

*The Title and the Importance of the Dream

- Steinbeck's first idea for a title for Of Mice and Men was "Something That Happened".  He didn't go with it in the end, but it gives us an insight into how he felt about this story. 

- That the death of Lennie could be referred to as just "something that happened" speaks volumes about the brokenness and loneliness of American society at the time.

- It could be seen as highlighting an outrage that the tragic events at the climax of the novel go by pretty much unnoticed by the wider world and unrecognised or understood even by the other members of the ranch

'Now what they hell ya suppose is eatin them two guys?' 

asks Carlson as Slim takes George off at the end of the novel. 

It is shocking that Carlson would even ask that question. Carlson and Curley don't understand why George and Slim would be shaken by the death of a huge idiot like Lennie. Their puzzlement comes more from ignorance than heartlessness. If Slim represents some kind of hope for compassion and companionship, Curley and Carlson represent the real world - where every man has to look out for himself and where men like Lennie can die without anyone stopping to think about it, let alone mourn. 

- The title 'Of Mice and Men' alludes to a poem by Robert Burns that outlines how both men and animals generally experience the death of their dreams...and that this is the way of the world - no-one can control it. 

"The best-laid plans of mice and men/Oft go awry"

"Dreams" Burns is arguing don't differentiate between mice and men - whoever you are, they lead to 'grief and pain'.

See entire poem here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertburns/works/to_a_mouse/

It's worth thinking about the connection between the poem and the novel....

At the very least, by shaping the novel with opposition of "Mice versus Men" Steinbeck is prompting us to think about:

- significance and insignificance - certain people have status and power in the world and others don't. Is this fair? Can we change it? Should we change it? How can we change it?
- strength and weakness. There's lots of different types of strength and weakness in the novel (George contrasted to Lennie)
- what does it mean to be human? Is Lennie less of human somehow because he is mentally challenged?
- whether it is a good thing to have dreams or not, even if they will never happen. (Link to the American dream!)

Consider whether Lennie's and George's dream is bad for them, and if so, what the alternative might be. 

* "Playable novel"  - Steinbeck first conceived Of Mice and Men as a play, and the story is told in a way that is very reminiscent of a stage play.

-clear focus on physical action and attributes, body language and speech. Steinbeck conveys emotion and relationships much as a playwright would throughout the novel 
(see opening pages of the novel, where we quickly grasp what kind of relationship Lennie and George have through what they look like and how they interact - Lennie and George are opposites physically but their clothes and their body language immediately make it clear that they belong together and share a close bond)

-'The dream' could be seen as a play within a play - in that it is purely imagined and out of reach. It is never going to happen. On one level it is a fairytale for Lennie that George repeats almost religiously - to give him some measure of calm and comfort. 
> heavy dramatic irony in the final scene as George is preparing Lennie to die but Lennie himself is completely unaware of this.

*Pathetic fallacy - heat and barrenness of the landscape sets the scene well for the tragedy that will unfold

- The sunset at the end prefigures how Lennie's life is drawing to an end.

*Foreshadowing and symbolism is key - Lennie crushing the mouse, Candy's dog being shot (not by Candy - to his great regret)

The repeated use of symbolism intensifies the sense that the tragic climax of the novel is inevitable. Lennie does not know his own strength, and there is no place on the ranch for an old dog, just as there is no place in American society for a man like Lennie. 

*Names

Even the names of the characters are symbolic in a way - either based on a physical characteristic (Slim, Curley) or emphasising how interchangeable the men on the ranch are as their names are very similar to each other - Candy, Curley, Carlson.

- Much has been made by feminist critics of the fact that Curley's wife does not have a name - but the same could be said for a lot of the characters. The Boss, arguably the most powerful figure in the novel has no name either showing that he's only significant because of his function, rather than as a human being. (Think: why might viewing people as only functional be a concern for Steinbeck?)

'Slim' is clearly a nickname and we do not know his real name. This could be seen as an indication of how men on the ranch are not really known deeply - the lack of real or lack of realistic names emphasises how personhood has been cheapened in the world of the ranch.

-Soledad, the name of the nearest town - the novel's first line is 'A few miles south of Soledad - means loneliness in Spanish.  This seems fitting for a place that is both inhospitable both physically (hot, dry) and socially (no easy secure way for George and Lennie to earn a stable living). It could also be seen as foreshadowing Lennie and George's ultimate fate (death and losing your best friend, respectively). 

- George's surname Milton has resonances of Milton's Paradise Lost - again adding to the sense of lostness and tragic inevitably and may link to the setting/ideas of man and nature.

*'Is thinking'

Steinbeck himself wrote that he believes that what we do in the moment is the most important. We can't control what happens in the future, but in the moment we can choose how we respond, and those actions can make a big impact. Steinbeck referred to this as 'is thinking'. We can see it at play in George as he chooses to protect Lennie by killing him at the end of the novel. Even though it is a massive struggle (Note repeated reference to 'shaking' and 'steadied') George has the courage to care for Lennie whatever it takes.