Of Mice and Men 2 gr. A

 Section 3

From p. 70 ("Candy joined the attack with joy...") to p. 72 ("...he said miserably.")

A child, and animal = at first, a child. he's not himself in the end. hand = paw

Curley = like a terrier, a rat, flopping like a fish

1. Choreography

a. Lennie thinks about the dream, and smiles.

b. Curley thinks L is laughing at him.

c. C punches L twice in the face. L. starts bleeding, and doesn't defend himself.

d. George asks Lennie to defend himself. L. tries to, but C. keeps attacking him.

e. G. orders L. to attack C. 

f. L. crushes C.'s hand.

g. G. orders L. to stop several times, and slaps him in the face.

h. L. lets go of C.'s hand.

2. Lennie is presented as an animal. His hands turn to "paws" as soon as he starts defending himself. George orders him around the way he would with an attack dog ("I said, get him."). Curley too is compared to an attack dog, a "terrier," a little but aggressive species. Slim calls him a rat. This vicious fight is quick and dangerous. In the end, Curley is described like a fish, "flopping on a line." Earlier still, Carlson says Curley is "yellow as a frog belly."

3. Lennie can't do anything by himself : he needs George to defend himself, and even to talk (the interview with the boss). He's childlike. 

4. Isn't it an asymmetrical relationship ? It seems Lennie needs George way more than George needs Lennie.

Section 4

from p. 80 ("His voice grew soft...") to p. 82 ("...an' he gets sick.")

Lennie = depicted like / as a child. Fear of losing one's parents / being abandoned / left alone.

Lennie is dangerous. Crooks is threatened.

 

1. Crooks and the danger = he apprehends it, knows how to ride it.
torture / forgetfulness. Evil, innocence vs experience. character depth

Crooks plays with Lennie, torturing him to vent his own frustrations. The characters use Lennie as an actual punching bag, but also as an emotional punching bag. It gives Crooks an "evil edge," he's experienced evil. It makes it clear he too lost his innocence long ago.

But Lennie, even if he's innocent, is dangerous. And when he starts threatening Crooks, he turns into a "it." He's no longer human. Contrary to other characters, Crooks senses the danger and defuses it.

 

2.  the rift between L & G = Lennie might not be that stupid = maybe he got it right, all right. 

Check section 1.

Lennie is not described as being dumb, or an idiot. In section 1, he "avoided [a] bait," "sensed his advantage" and "spoke craftily" to George. He's not intelligent, he's cunning (animal). It might be that he understood that George is slowly drifting away. By section 4, these two characters have been away several times. They are gradually separated, and Lennie probably gets it ; that's the reason for his anger when Crooks wants to tease him about George.

 

3. "Like a dog" = tragic irony

Oracle ? Like in Greek tragedy.

 

4. Who needs who ? 

Crooks' monologue at the end of the passage suggests that George might need Lennie more than the other way around, simply because being alone means being "too lonely" and "sick." George is nothing special without Lennie, and that's what Crooks understood. What's more, Lennie epitomizes innocence, which is what all the characters are all looking for in the novel, in a way or another.

5. "Books ain't no good." = a programme. 

Strange to have such an idea developed in a novel. Books are poor substitutes to human beings? Or, books are nothing without humanity?

Section 5

 

Rabbit & Aunt Clara

Why Doesn't Lennie stop ?

Lennie kills her. Lennie thinks that Curley's wife is like Aunt Clara (VELVET). 

Lennie becomes a monster / an animal as it is described in the beginning of the book.

"You're nuts... like a big baby."

there's a progression in the novel in things Lennie kills = a mouse, a puppy, and Curley's wife. There's a supreme irony in that they are all depicted as pets, and killed as such.

When the men talk about the murder, Curley says he wants to join the hunting party. Right until the end, Curley's wife is an object, a means to Curley's end. The text explains she is "flopping like a fish," just like Curley when Lennie was crushing his hand : he was "flopping," and "flopping like a fish on a line." There's cruelty in this juxtaposition, because they share a common destiny, whereas they're never in the same scene together, but always apart. Ironically, they're only together once she's dead, and even then, Curley won't stay with her, Candy will (as an outcast).

 

E. Kant : "Man is not a means, he's an end" = For Carlson, Candy's dog is just a means, he's a tool, and it's not useful anymore, so it should be shot. For Candy though, the dog is an end, a companion, an extension of himself. Killing the dog feels like killing a part of himself. 

Before dying, Curley's wife shares her own dream with Lennie. This confession helps characterizing her even more, giving her depth and feelings.

The context of the murder is very poetic. The introduction to the section depicts the barn as in a still life : "there was the buzz of flies in the air, the lazy afternoon humming." The humans are oblivious to this simple, direct beauty. When Lennie leaves the body behind, the same description is given once again, and another time at the end of the section ("Both ends the same").

Every section starts with no human presence.

 

Destiny and Tragedy :

The murder is hinted at in the very first section (on page 12), when George reminds Lennie of the incident with a young woman's dress. Just like Ancient Greece's Oracles, the reader already knows how the story is going to end. Lennie and George are characterized as tragic heroes who can't escape their fate. The only freedom they have is to retain some of their dignity.

 

Section 6

1. Succession of events

a. a peaceful place (valley of the beginning). Animals.

b. Lennie arrives and drinks.

c. Lennie thinks about Aunt Clara, the rabbits, and George.

d. George arrives and joins Lennie.

e. Lennie makes George tell the dream. 

f. George tells the story and kills Lennie in the back.

g. the men from the ranch arrive. George and Slim get away for a drink.

2. Tragedy

In the novel, there are countless instances (examples) of foreshadowing what will happen in the end (to foreshadow = prévoir). Indeed, when Lennie tries to convince George to leave the ranch, he says this place is "mean" and that it's going to end badly. Similarly, Crooks evokes the future of George, drinking in "whorehouse[s]," and Candy never leaving the ranch, but only "in a box." He also predicts Lennie will be "on the road" very soon. 

The theatricality of the novel is emphasied by the unity of time, space and action that characterizes the sections (each one beginning and ending in the same way), the pity and awe exemplified by the characters, and the inescapibility of Fate. Lennie is going to die, the novel makes in abundantly clear. But like Oedipus, George taunts (se moque, provoque) Fate with a free act : he kills Lennie himself, to avoid a terrible ending with the men of the ranch butchering Lennie.

Ironically, the "dream" also evokes what George will eventually become : a man eaten by regret and solitude, just like the others.

esth. murders / head / hand

3. oblivious / caught by evil

mental troubles / acts = angry reaction / fault, responsability / unconscious

aware or not of the importance of the deed / only actions matter

troublemaker / not with malice / naive / inadvertent / normal vs acceptable

doesn't know / he knows it's bad / complex / 

Innocence vs guilt

consciousness / child, baby / dream only / oblivious to the rest

Lennie committed the crime, no doubt about that. But the real question is, has he experienced evil? Does he feign being innocent? Is he aware of what is going on ?

Pro

Lennie forgets everything, and is described by the text and by characters as a baby or an animal. He doesn't defend himself against Curley. He's smiling in the face of danger. Like lost children, he's attracted to soft things. He's presented like a magnet for others. He's too good for this world. 

 forgets everything. Dream, baby, animal = doesn't defend himself. Smiling in the face of danger. soft things. Magnet for others = sunlike and magnet for evil = not fit for this world.

 

Con 

Lennie is prone to fits of anger (the puppy). In the end, his imaginary conversation with Aunt Clara suggests that he remembers and understands everything. this is also what George says in the end. He can manipulate George (he does it twice, "craftily"). He's gifted with an animal-like intelligence (cunning). He also predicts what will happen early in the novel (section 3). He gets mad with Crooks precisely when the latter (ce dernier) suggests that George might go away or be hurt.

anger / the puppy / Crooks / realization (A. C.), craftily, superpowers, crooks = g away.

Yet

Why do these changes occur by section 4? Is he becoming evil, or corrupted by evil? Was he always aware of the situation ? Or does he act according to his nature, like the heron that kills the snake at the beginning of section 6? What the novel entails is that he doesn't belong in this world, he needs to go away, and he understands this perfectly well ("I'll fin' a cave so I won't be no more trouble"). 

becoming evil? change ? or nature (heron?).  solution cave

But, Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy! 

 

To A Mouse, R. Burns, 1785

HOMEWORK =

from p. 101 ("She asked, "what makes you so nuts with rabbits?") to p. 103 ("...Lennie had broken her neck.")

After reading the excerpt, try and organize ideas that could show the interest of that passage. You should also detect if there's any element that echoes other passages in the book.

Read section 6 = Is Lennie innocent ? (Has he experienced evil?)