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Which to choose?  Friendship or Isolation...

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Which to choose?  Friendship or Isolation...

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In this novella, George and Lennie represent THE ideal male friendship.  They don’t talk about how they feel about each other or why they should stay loyal – they just stand by each other, and that’s that.

In contrast, everyone else is isolated from one another.  Everyone seems to get along quite well together by talking about how isolated they are, even though the men on the ranch are constantly together and chatting.

Although they are always together, George and Lennie are isolated from the rest of the world. Friendship is a negative relationship in the novella; every time any character gets close to any other, something goes wrong.

Friendship:

LENNIE exclaimed, "But I wouldn’t eat none, George. I’d leave it all for you. You could cover your beans

with it and I wouldn’t touch none of it." (p.13 in pdf)

Isolation:

LENNIE whined, "If you don’ want me I can go off in the hills an’ find a cave. I can go away any time." (p. 14 in pdf)

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The American Dream:  a reality or an illusion?

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The American Dream:  a reality or an illusion?

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Of Mice and Men captures the feel of rural America during the Depression. Different outlooks are presented:
--the never-will-be starlet trying to make it to Hollywood,
--the isolated black man born and raised in California,
--a ranch full of men that like to go to whorehouses, play pool, and drink away their earnings
--men that are constantly bouncing from job to job just shy of making ends meet.

The America of Of Mice and Men is populated with dreamers who are constantly struggling to achieve their dreams.

This novella argues that there is no single America. Rather, there are many different groups

(women, blacks, farm workers, farm owners), each with their own unique struggle.

Quote:

GEORGE complained, "…If I was bright, if I was even a little bit smart, I’d have my own little place, an’ I’d be bringin’ in my own crops, ‘stead of doin’ all the work and not getting what comes up outa the ground."
(p. 40 in pdf)

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Of Mice and Men deals with many of America’s age-old, hot-button issues, including sexism, racism, ageism, and discrimination against those with disabilities. Most importantly, this prejudice isn’t ever explicitly noted or fought against – those who are discriminated against accept the prejudice against them as a way of life.

Prejudice is a fact of life on the ranch because it was a fact of life everywhere in America at

that time.

Crooks said darkly, "Guys don’t come into a colored man’s room very much." (p. 76 in pdf)

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The old man squirmed uncomfortably. "Well-hell! I had him so
long. Had him since he was a pup. I herded sheep with him." He said proudly, "You wouldn't think it to look at him now, but he was the best damn sheep dog I ever seen."
(p.48 in pdf)

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Only character who say Mr. when speaking to Slim.
Crooks said, "Mr. Slim."
(p.51 in pdf)

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"George, how long's it gonna be till we get that little place an' live
on the fatta the lan-an' rabbits?"

"I don' know," said George. "We gotta get a big stake together. I
know a little place we can get cheap, but they ain't givin' it away."
(p.58 in pdf)

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"The white kids come to play at our place, an' sometimes I event to play with them, and some of them was pretty nice. My of man didn't like that. I never knew till long later why he didn't like that. But I know now. "
(p.71 in pdf)

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"S'pose you get us
canned. S'pose you do. You think we'll hit the highway an' look for
another lousy two-bit job like this. You don't know that we got our
own ranch to go to, an' our own house. We ain't got to stay here.
We gotta house and chickens an' fruit trees an' a place a hunderd
time prettier than this. An' we got fren's, that's what we got.
Maybe there was a time when we was scared of gettin' canned, but
we ain't no more. We got our own lan', and it's ours, an' we c'n go
to it"
(p.79 in pdf)

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"Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody -to be near him." He whined, "A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya," he cried, "I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick."
(p.73 in pdf)

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“Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. . . . With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don’t have to sit in no bar room blowin’ in our jack jus’ because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us.” (p.15 in pdf)