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| Steinbeck, John: Of Mice and Man
Steinbeck, John: Of Mice and Man
Book report
John Steinbeck: ”Of Mice and
Man”
by
Tobias Roth
class: 12 Hk
teacher: Mrs. Schmidt- Becht
Helmholtzschule
Frankfurt
to be handed in on June 9th,
1998
”We have a dream.
Someday, we`ll have a little house and
a couple of acres.
A place to call
home.”
The author
John Steinbeck was born on February 27th,
1902 in Salina, California. He died on December 20th, 1968 in New
York. Steinbeck is one of the most famous American writers. He is an important
exponent of the so-called sociocritical novel. He was a reporter in the Second
World War and in Vietnam. In 1962 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
His most important works are: Tortilla Flat (1935); Of Mice and Men (1937); The
Grapes of Wrath (1939); Cannery Row (1945); East of Eden (1952); The Short Reign
of Pippin IV: A Fabrication (1957).
There are several films based on John Steinbeck’s
novels.
I. Summary, narrative
structure...
The novel ”Of Mice and Man” by John
Steinbeck is set in California in the thirties. The author tells about the
friendship of Lennie and George, two travelling labourers working on ranches.
The two friends are a very extraordinary pair. George is small and quick and
does all of the thinking and talking for them. Lennie is big, strong and has the
mind of a young child. Most of the time Lennie acts as if he were George’s
little brother. Lennie likes to pet soft things, e.g. mice or other small
animals.
The two men have been travelling together for some time
and have gone through several jobs. Lennie seems to get them into trouble all
the time. The two had to flee from their last job because Lennie touched a
woman’s dress. The dream of the two men is to earn enough money to buy a
piece of farmland of their own.
At the beginning of the novel Lennie and George are on
their way to a job loading barley on a ranch in California near the Salina
river. George instructs Lennie about their new job and sets down some rules:
Lennie must not say anything, he should avoid trouble and is to come back to the
riverbank -the place where they slept the night before- whenever trouble
arises.
During their first day (Saturday) on the ranch it turns
out soon that the rancher’s son Curley is a dangerous man who tries to
start a fight with Lennie. Another potential danger is Curley’s wife who
starts flirting with George and Lennie right away. George wants Lennie to ignore
Curley’s wife totally. George and Lennie make friends with Candy, an
elderly ranchhand. When Candy comes to know about their dream he wants to join
in. Candy has saved some money, so with his savings and George’s and
Lennie’s money their dream comes into reach.
Candy’s dog is very old, blind, dumb and sick and
the other labourers want to get rid of the stinking animal, but Candy is not
able to kill his dog himself. For this reason one of the other labourers kills
Candy’s dog with a revolver.
Lennie is given a small puppy by another ranchhand whose
dog has had a litter of them. Lennie is very happy about that, but soon the
puppy dies because Lennie pets it too much and too hard.
Curley starts a fight with Lennie. This time George
allows Lennie to defend himself. Lennie wins the fight and breaks Curley’s
hand.
At the end of the novel, during Lennie’s and
George’s second day on the farm, a Sunday, Lennie meets Curley’s
wife in the barn. When she learns that Lennie likes to touch soft things, she
invites him to touch her hair. He does so, but as always he holds on too tight.
The woman begins to struggle and yell, Lennie panics and accidentally brakes her
neck like he did to the puppy. Lennie flees to the riverbank like George had
told him.
When the other ranchhands come back and find the dead
body, Curley insists on lynching Lennie. All of them run after Lennie but George
separates himself from the others to get to Lennie’s hiding place before
the others find him...
”Of Mice and Man” is told from a third
person’s point of view and is written in chronological order. The story
describes only two days in the lives of George and Lennie. Moreover it only sets
at few places on the ranch and the river bank.
It is also remarkable that most of the novel consists of
dialogue and that descriptions are rare. Because of this the characters are
described quite implicitly and indirectly, i.e. most of the time the reader has
to judge the characters by himself through their actions, behaviour and what
they say. The readers’ s sympathy is always with George and
Lennie.
The language in the description is quite formal and
neutral but the dialogues are full of colloquial English, slang and even some
substandard English, so many parts of the novel are written in the typical
language of American labourers of that time. The sentence structure is clear and
easy to survey throughout the story.
There are a lot of symbols in ”Of Mice and
Man”: many events at the beginning of the story prepare events that happen
later in the story, e.g. in the beginning Lennie causes the death of his puppy,
lateron he accidentally kills Curley’s wife.
I think that ”Of Mice and Man” is a very
good book because the story fits well to the narrative structure and
language:
The novel is about two “ordinary” labourers,
so the story is not complicated or hard to understand and it is written in their
“ordinary” language.
Lennie
II. Commentary
To my mind ”Of Mice and Man” is a very
interesting book. I like it very much and have enjoyed reading
it.
You get into the novel from the very first beginning.
Soon you feel sympathy for George and Lennie and share their dream of having a
piece of land of their own.
A lot of times I felt sorry for Lennie because of the
mistakes he made and the others’ absence of understanding for him. I also
felt happy with him when he dreamed about his own land with George and when he
got his puppy.
Besides this I liked that most of the story consists of
dialogues. This makes the story exciting and in my view the using of the
language of the labourers involves you with the characters. I also think that
because of the many dialogues the novel can be compared to a
play.
Before I read ”Of Mice and Man” I did not
know much about how labourers used to live during that time. For me it has been
interesting to learn about their conditions of living and to get an idea of the
life on a ranch in the thirties.
Moreover I was fascinated by Lennie’ s view of the
world and what kind of dreams he had.
To my mind the sociocritical aspect of the novel is very
strong. The author describes the homelessness of poor people in California in
the thirties with much realism. The reader is confronted with their hopeless
situation which seems to change never in their lives, no matter how hard they
work. All of this makes the novel very touching. It made me think about what it
would have been like to have lived as a travelling labourer in those
times.
The only thing I did not like about the novel is that it
has such a sad ending because I am a person who likes happy
endings.
Lennie and George at the
riverbank
III. Recommendation
I think ”Of Mice and Man” is an excellent
novel that is very interesting to read. Although the book is more than 60 years
old and belongs to the classics of American literature it is never boring, so I
recommend it to everybody who just wants to read a good book.
To be more precise: I recommend ”Of Mice and
Man” to everybody who wants to find out about how life of American
labourers on a ranch used to be in the thirties.
You also get to know the very interesting and
extraordinary friendship between George and Lennie and the reader begins to
understand in what kind of world people like Lennie live.
I would also recommend ”Of Mice and Man” to
everybody who is a dreamer and likes dreams because by them you really can get
into the book and understand George and Lennie.
Finally I have to say that there is a very good film
based on the novel by John Steinbeck produced in 1992. For me this motion
picture is one of the very few films that are as good as the book they are based
on.
June 3rd, 1998
words: 1.444
characters: 6.420
Pictures are taken from the motion
picture ”Of Mice and Man” produced in 1992
Es wurden Grafiken aufgrund des hohen
Speicherplatzbedarfs entfernt!
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