Of Mice and Men - bits and pieces from revision session today

GEORGE "I don't want no fights," said Lennie. He got up from his bunk and sat down at the table, across from George. Almost automatically George shuffled the cards and laid out his solitaire hand. He used a deliberate, thoughtful, slowness." In this quote we see George playing a solitary card game showing, that Lennie cannot join in with any of the activities that George does. Playing a 'solitaire hand' is showing us that Lennie and George don't really have a true connection. The group of three 'deliberate, thoughtful, slowness,' illustrates the isolation and social awkwardness in this situation. The 'almost automatically' could indicate that George doesn't want human interaction and is purely doing this as a time wasting, mechanical action. Slim quotes After meeting Curley's wife for the first time, a new character - Slim - is placed into the story. He uses dialogue like: "Hi, good-looking" & "Well, you ain't tryin' very hard. I seen him goin' in your house" Since Curley isn't around, he uses a chance to potentially flirt with Curley's Wife and get away with it. His disregard for Curley's 'alpha male' personality shows that he likes to put his job in danger to talk to the only woman on the ranch. Also by using 'you ain't trying', it can make it seem like C's Wife is not very bright so she has to try and make herself noticed George "Guys like us that work on ranches are the loneliest guys in the world. They ain't got no family and they don't belong no place. They got nothin' to look ahead to". It's hard out there for a ranchhand. Steinbeck seems to be saying that the loneliness is even worse than the poverty: like Lennie and George, you can bear a lot more if you have a friend. The double negatives reinforces the lonely aspects of the speech. "We travel together," said George coldly. "Oh, so it's that way." George was tense and motionless. "Yea, it's that way." (2.80-82) By saying "Oh, so it's that way," Curley is essentially accusing Lennie and George of being gay. But George doesn't take the bait. It just shows how pathetic Curley is that he can't understand the men's friendship. SETTING Quote: 'A water snake glided smoothly up the pool, twisting its periscope head from side to side... the beak swallowed the little snake.' This pathetic fallacy foreshadows the tragedy that is about to befall Lennie. The theme of survival of the fittest is present throughout the book, notably in the symbol of Candy's dog and how it is treated. The simile of the periscope head and the repetition of 'side from side' present us with a cautious animal, which contrasts with the antics of Lennie who 'crashes' through the brush.