NATURE/AMERICAN LANDSCAPE

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool. On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Galiban mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees&emdash;willlows fresh and green with early spring, carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the winter's flooding; and sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool. On the sandy bank under the trees the leaves lie deep and so crisp that a lizard makes a great skittering if he runs among them. Rabbits come out of the brush to sit on the sand in the evening, and the damp flats are covered with the night tracks of 'coons, and with the spread pads of dogs from the ranches, and with the split-wedge tracks of deer that come to drink in the dark. (1)

GEORGE AND LENNIE/COMRADELY IDEAL

George lay back on the sand and crossed his hands under his head, and Lennie imitated him, raising his head to see whether he were doing it right. "God, you're a lot of trouble," said George. "I could get along so easy and so nice if I didn't have you on my tail. I could live easy and maybe have a girl." (7)

George's voice became deeper. He repeated his words rhythmically as though he had said them many times before. "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place. They come to a ranch an' work up a stake and then they go into town and blow their stake, and the first thing you know they're poundin' their tail on some other ranch. They ain't got nothing to look ahead to."

Lennie was delighted. "That's it&emdash;that's it. Now tell how it is with us."

George went on. "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 those other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us."

Lennie broke in. "But not us! An' why? Because… because I got you to look after men, and you got me to look after you, and that's why." He laughed delightedly. 13-14

SUSPICION/HOSTILITY OF OTHERS TO GEORGE AND LENNIE'S RELATIONSHIP

" I said what stake you got in this guy? You takin' his pay away from him?"

"No, 'course I ain't. Why ya think I'm sellin' him out?"

"Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is." (22)

SLIM

He was capable of killing a fly on the wheeler's butt with a bull whip without touching the mule. There was a gravity in his manner and a quiet so profound that all stopped talking when he spoke. (33)

Slim looked through George and beyond. "Ain't many guys travel around together," he mused. "I don't know why. Maybe ever'body in the whole damn world is scared of each other." 35

"I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog. " 61

Lennie is like an animal who, when confronted with Curley's misplaced anger, "covered his face with huge paws and bleated with terror." 63

DREAMS

You're nuts." Crooks was scornful. Talks about all of the bindle stiffs and their dreams:

"They come, an' they quit an' go on; an' every damn one of 'em's got a little piece of land in his head. An' never a God damn one of 'em ever gets it. Just like heaven. 74

fraternal dream interrupted by Curley's wife &endash; Candy, Lennie and Crooks had been imagining life on their own farm:

"Any you boys seen Curley?"

"They swung their heads toward the door. Looking in was Curley's wife. Her face was heavily made up. Her lips were slightly parted. She breather strongly, as though she had been running.

"Curley ain't been here," Candy said sourly. 77

she says to them,

"Well, I ain't giving you no trouble. Think I don't like to talk to somebody ever' once in a while? Think I like to stick in that house alla time?" 77

when Lennie tells her that George told him not to speak to her, she responds:

Her face grew angry. "Wha's the matter with me?" she cried. "Ain't I got a right to talk to nobody?" Whatta they think I am, anyways?… 87

Curley's wife's dream:

"a show come through, an' I met one of the actors. He says I could go with that show. But my ol' lady wouldn' let me. She says because I was on'y fifteen. But the guy said I coulda. If I went, I wouldn't be livin' like this, you bet." 88

"Coulda been in the movies, an' had nice clothes&emdash;all them nice clothes like they wear. An' I coulda sat in them big hotels, an' had pitchers took of me. When they had them previews I coulda went to them, an' spoke in the radio, an' it wouldn'ta cost me a cent because I was in the pitcher. An' all them nice clothes like they wear. Because this guy says I was a natural." She looked up at Lennie, and she made a small grand gesture with her arm and hand to show that she could act. 89

Lennie and Curley's wife are both preoccupied with their own dreams &endash; the unrealistic nature of each contributes to the doubtfulness of the other.

He looked down at her, and carefully he removed his hand from over her mouth, and she lay still. "I don't want ta hurt you," he said, "but George will be mad if you yell." 91

his dedication to his own dream precipitates his violence toward her &endash; is everybody blindly pursuing some personal dream that blinds them to their common humanity?

Candy lashes out at Curley's wife when his own dream is dashed:

"You God damn tramp," he said viciously. "You done it, di'n't you? I s'pose you're glad. Ever'body knowed you'd mess things up. You wasn't no good. You ain't no good now, you lousy tart." He sniveled, and his voice shook. "I could of hoed in the garden and washed the dishes for those guys." 95-96

REPRESENTATION OF WOMANHOOD IN THE NOVEL

Both men glanced up, for the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off. A girl was standing there looking in. She had full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages. She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers. "I'm lookin' for Curley," she said. Her voice had a nasal, brittle quality.

George looked away from her and then back. "He was in here a minute ago, but he went."

"Oh!" She put her hands behind her back and leaned against the door frame so that her body was thrown forward. "You're the new fellers that just come, ain't ya?" (31)

"Well, that girl rabbits in an' tells the law shebeen raped. The guys in Weed start a party out to lynch Lennie. 42

Whit asks George if he has seen Curley's wife

"I ain't seen that much of her," said George.

Whit laid down his cards impressively. "Well, stick around an' keep your eyes open. You'll see plenty. She ain't concealin' nothing. I never seen nobody like her. She got the eye goin' all the time on everybody. I bet she even gives the stable buck the eye. I don't know what the hell she wants." (51)

George said, "She's gonna make a mess. They's gonna be a bad mess about her. She's a jail bait all set on the trigger. . . 51

Curley's wife says to Crooks,

"Well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny."

Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. . . He said "Yes, ma'am," and his voice was toneless. 81

Curley's wife lay with a half-covering of yellow hay. And the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were al gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young. 93

Lennie's innocence:

"Why ain't you wanted?" Lennie asked.

"'Cause I'm black. They play cards in there, but I can't play because I'm black. They say I stink. Well, I tell you, you all of you stink to me." 68

at end of novel, Lennie moves "as silently as a creeping bear moves." 100

REDEMPTIVE MOMENT: SLIM'S COMPASSION FOR GEORGE

Slim said, "You hadda, George. I swear you hadda. Come on with me." He led George into the entrance of the trail and up toward the highway.

Curley and Carlson looked after them. And Carlson said, "Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin' those guys?" 107