Of Mice and Men

Summary

Of Mice and Men takes place over a few days on a ranch near Soledad in California's Salinas Valley during the Depression. George Milton, small and sharp, and Lennie Small, a huge, immensely strong man with an intellectual disability and the mind of a child, are itinerant ranch hands who travel together, unusual among solitary migrant workers. They have fled a job in Weed after Lennie, who loves to stroke soft things, grabbed a girl's dress and would not let go, and she accused him of rape. Camped by the Salinas River the night before starting work, George scolds Lennie for carrying a dead mouse and tells him to come back to this spot and hide if he gets into trouble. At Lennie's request he repeats the story of their dream: one day they will buy a little farm, live off the fat of the land, and Lennie will tend the rabbits. At the ranch they meet the old swamper Candy, who lost a hand in an accident and owns an ancient, smelly dog; the boss; his aggressive son Curley, a small former boxer, recently married and jealous; Curley's lonely, flirtatious wife, who is never named; Slim, the respected jerkline skinner; and Crooks, the Black stable buck, crippled by a horse's kick and forced to live alone. Carlson persuades Candy to let him shoot the old dog, and Candy later says he wishes he had done it himself. Overhearing the dream, Candy offers his savings, and suddenly the farm seems within reach; even Crooks briefly asks to join. When Curley attacks Lennie, Lennie, at George's word, crushes Curley's hand; Slim persuades Curley to say it was caught in a machine. Slim gives Lennie a puppy, which Lennie accidentally kills by petting it too hard. In the barn Curley's wife confides her disappointed dreams of Hollywood and invites Lennie to stroke her hair; when she panics, Lennie, trying to silence her, breaks her neck. He flees to the river. As Curley leads a lynch mob, George finds Lennie first, tells him the dream once more, and shoots him in the back of the head with Carlson's Luger. Slim leads George away, telling him he had to do it, while Carlson wonders what is eating them.

Top Lessons

• Friendship against loneliness

  George and Lennie's bond is rare in a world of solitary workers, and nearly everyone else on the ranch is desperately alone. The novella shows companionship as both refuge and burden.

• Dreams sustain and break

  The dream of the farm keeps the men going, and its collapse is the tragedy. Steinbeck shows how hope is both necessary and fragile for the poor.

• Mercy and violence

  The shooting of Candy's dog anticipates George's killing of Lennie. The book asks whether killing can be an act of love and what society's failure to care for the vulnerable forces on individuals.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The novella is widely used in discussions of intellectual disability, caregiving and end-of-life ethics. Lennie's disability is portrayed with sympathy but also through period language and assumptions; George functions as an unpaid lifelong carer in a society with no supports beyond institutions and lynch law. The shooting of Candy's old dog and Candy's regret that he did not do it himself prefigure George's killing of Lennie, and both scenes are often discussed in relation to euthanasia and mercy killing, though the novella's situation is not a medical one. Crooks's spinal injury from a horse's kick, his liniment and chronic pain, and Candy's lost hand and fear of being discarded in old age, add further strands on disability, ageing and work.

• Section 1

  George describes the incident at Weed and Lennie's compulsion to stroke soft things; he rehearses what Lennie must do if in trouble.

• Section 3

  Carlson shoots Candy's old dog; Candy later wishes he had done it himself.

• Section 3

  Lennie crushes Curley's hand; the injury is covered up as a machine accident and Curley is taken to the doctor.

• Section 4

  Crooks rubs liniment into his crooked back in his solitary room.

• Section 6

  George kills Lennie to spare him the lynch mob.