Lennie Small is the central character in the novel, ‘Of Mice and Men’ Essay

Lennie Small is the central character in the novel, ‘Of Mice and Men’. The American John Steinbeck wrote the story about Ranch life in the 1930s. Lennie is perhaps the most interesting character in the novel. He is likeable and even loveable, maybe because he himself is so keen to show affection. There is a huge part of Lennie that means no harm, however he is definitely not harmless. He is both villain and victim, caring and destructive. He is complicated, even contradictory. At the time the novel was published the American stock market on Wall Street crashed catastrophically. This led to a massive economic depression in the 1930s when increasing mechanisation was driving agricultural labourers off the land. California was filling with official and unofficial refugee camps. Drought and over-farming were reducing the amount of fertile land. This meant owners in Oklahoma and Arkansas were going bankrupt and banks were repossessing their land. Banks themselves were collapsing and all of it was worse if you were black. America was still a highly racist and segregated society. The American Dream was dead. Poverty and starvation stalked California and other stricken states. Migrants were worst of, there were no unions to protect workers, the bosses held on to their own wealth. The rich stayed rich and the poor stayed poor. There was no more unclaimed land, striking gold was extremely rare and wages were so low no one could afford to save any of their money. Many people in society didn’t have jobs – there was a 30% unemployment rate. Everyone was suffering and everyone just wanted to have a better quality of life. The whole world was a mess. The depression affected Europe economically too. And politically, Europe was slowly descending into chaos, especially because of the rise in fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain. In 1937, when Steinbeck wrote ‘Mice and Men’ civil war broke out in Spain in an attempt to suppress fascism. The Nazis were in power in Germany and becoming increasingly repressive, world war two was not far off. Although Steinbeck’s novel isn’t about any of these things specifically, in a world filling with chaos and economic depression, here was story that almost everyone could identify with. So unsurprisingly it sold, and sold, and sold†¦ Lennie is a huge grown man, but he is also very childlike. He is a brilliant farm labourer because he is a powerful man with huge hands. He may grown up physically but he hasn’t grown up mentally, as Slim says, ‘he’s jes like a kid.’ Lennie is innocent, and doesn’t really know how to behave; he asks a lot of innocent questions. Slim says he can see immediately that Lennie ‘ain’t mean’. Lennie does not seem interested in other people, apart from beautiful women. He takes orders from George, and he can also take orders from Slim about petting his new puppy. It is clear that Lennie doesn’t want to disobey anyone or do anything wrong. He takes orders and can slave away, like a machine. He is a very useful person for George to have teamed up with, because he’ll earn loads of cash. Curley’s wife calls Lennie a ‘dumdum’. Earlier, Slim says he seems a bit of a ‘cuckoo’- ‘crazy’. But George quickly denies it- Lennie is very slow but he’s not insane. However, when we see what Lennie does during the course of the novel, you begin to wonder. He is subject to violent fits and may be mentally ill, but these things weren’t properly diagnosed back then. Lennie identifies with animals; he looks like a bear, and walks like one – ‘he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws.’ He also eats and drinks like a hungry animal. He slavers and drools over beautiful women (e.g. Curley’s wife). It seems like he can’t control some of his animal instincts. Since childhood he has befriended animals before people – and it has to be cuddly animals. His Aunt Clara used to give him mice to play with. He is stubborn and very possessive over his animals, for example, over his mice, his puppy and his dream of tending his own rabbits. He never wants to let the animals we see him with out of his sight. But he is not very good at deceiving George – he knows whenever Lennie’s got one hidden in his coat or in his pocket. Lennie is always on the lookout for a pet, a mouse, a rabbit, a puppy or maybe a ‘purty’ woman. Lennie loves tame and friendly animals, that’s mostly what he is himself, tame and friendly. The mother of his new brown and white pup allows him to handle the others -‘she don’t care. She lets me.’ Animals seem unusually comfortable and unthreatened by him. However, there is another side to this obsession with animals. He’s also got a male animal’s sex drive. This expresses itself in his desire to stroke soft things, the lady in Weeds dress and Curley’s wife hair, for example. This seems sexual, but Lennie’s not mature enough to understand it. In both cases, whatever the motivation, the consequences were very bad. Lennie is dependent on George in both body and mind. George has virtually adopted him after Aunt Clara died. Lennie couldn’t survive on his own. He has none of the independence or practical skills of most adults. He wouldn’t be able to sort out food and shelter for himself. This is despite his repeated offer of going of on his own and living in a cave. In some ways he is animal-like but he probably wouldn’t survive a week out in the wild. George is the only person to stimulate Lennie’s mind, filling it with the dream of owning and farming their own land. Lennie is, in a way, addicted to this vision – pleading with George to tell him about it whenever he gets the chance. He gets himself into scrapes and he needs George to tell him about it whenever he gets the chance. He gets himself into scrapes and he needs George to get him out of them – like with Curley. He’d probably have been lynched or locked up years ago if George hadn’t stepped in. George is his parent, his brother, his guardian and his friend. He always there for him. George knows Lennie inside out. Lennie can’t keep secrets from him, like hiding mice in his pockets. Perhaps this isn’t surprising; Lennie has been with him for a long time, he has been independent on him for a long time. Lennie does however, give something in return, he is a good worker, he can do the work of two men. This is very useful for George. It helps them get and keep work, until Lennie mucks it all up. Lennie is also a killer. This is one of the key things in the whole novel. The gentlest man is also the most destructive. He is dangerous, and a violent killer. He attacks Curley, Curley’s wife, kills mice and throws his pup onto the barn floor in anger. He is not intentionally malicious. He doesn’t want to cause pain, when he fights Curley he’s actually encouraged by George: ‘Get ‘im Lennie!’ Lennie actually says afterwards he ‘didn’t wanta hurt him.’ Lennie has little self-restraint. He does everything in extremes. He’s liable to panic when someone else does, with Curley’ wife. In these panic attacks things tend to happen too suddenly, one minute he’s stroking Curley’s wife’s hair, the next he’s broken her neck. And even George can’t get him to stop crushing Curley’s hand. This is the tragedy of Lennie’s life; friendliness turns to aggression. As George says he ‘don’t know no rules’. But Lennie’s aggression is innocent, what’s what makes it different from the others’. Like others on the farm, Lennie is doomed to failure. Although his frequent violence is often unintended it still gets into trouble. For example, holding that girls dress in Weed, squashing mice and the puppy, and killing Curley’s wife. According to George Lennie is not malicious but he ‘don’t know no rules. But Lennie has sudden fits of anger, like when he hurled the puppy across the barn and he killed it. This suggests Lennie is not quite as innocent and blameless as George says he is. People pick on Lennie because he is stupid. Curley picks on him from the moment they meet. As does the boss, Curley’s wife and Crooks. His stupidity gets in him constant trouble. Because he can’t think for himself, he lives by his senses. That’s partly where the stroking comes in. he knows it feels nice, he doesn’t wonder why, he just does it. In the novel names are often symbolic. Steinbeck uses names to drop hints about the characters. Lennie’s surname is Small. Carlson makes a joke about it. But although he is huge height-wise, Lennie is fairly small in the brains department, so in a way it is not so ironic. Lennie is a complex, contradictory character. He is a large stupid, violent, strong, childish man who is very animal like. He always travels with George, he may be big and strong but it is very clear he is very slow. His main dream in life is to ‘tend the rabbits’ and ‘live off the fatta the lan’.