Lennie’s True Nature

ENG 4U

December 1^st 2012

Lennie’s True Nature

One of the main characters in Of Mice and Men makes the reader sympathize with him. Lennie Small is “A huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with sloping shoulders” (2). He is traveling with George Milton, his friend and companion, in the days of the Great Depression in search of work. Lennie is mentally challenged, plans to have a great future; his innocence makes the reader feel sorry for him. His character and his sympathetic nature are shown through his child-like actions during the novel and contribute towards his harsh end.

From the onset of the novel, Lennie seems to be mentally challenged. He is portrayed as being retarded and as having the mind of a child. We first meet Lennie at a pool of water when he starts gulping water without making sure it is safe. George, his companion and friend, starts reprimanding Lennie for drinking the water: “Lennie, for God’s sakes don’t drink so much” (3). This indicates Lennie’s lack of common sense. George has been taking care of Lennie since Lennie’s Aunt Clara had died. When they both arrive at the ranch, George is the one who answers for both of them. Their unique friendship casts a shadow of suspicion about them by their new boss, but he lets it roll by. In the days of the Great Depression it was unusual for two men to travel together, they would fear each other. George describes Lennie to Slim, a fellow co-worker: “He ain’t no cuckoo. He’s dumb as hell, but he ain’t crazy” (43).  After Lennie’s incident in Weed, George warns Lennie to stay away from Curley, the boss’s son, and his wife. One of Lennie’s mental problems is his inability to listen to George’s advice. In the beginning of the novel, George’s frustration is shown when Lennie asks him, for the second time, what they were going to do: “So you forgot awready, did you? I gotta tell you again, do I? Jesus Christ, you’re a crazy bastard” (4). This leads to Lennie disregarding George’s warning of not talking to Curley’s wife, which ultimately leads to their downfall. All of George’s and Lennie’s actions show how George had taken the responsibility of being a parent to Lennie.

                George and Lennie envision a great future. In chapter one, George introduces their dream. They plan to save enough money to purchase a farm and live off the “fatta the land”. George describes their dream:

We’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter, we’ll just say to hell with goin’ to work, and we’ll build up a fire in the stove and set around it an’ listen to the rain comin’ down on the roof – Nuts!                              (16)  

This entices Lennie because George tells him that he can have as many rabbits as he wants. Their dream acts as an instrumental part of their future as they realize they have something to live for. It falls apart when Lennie is killed and George goes back to thinking about the American dream and loses his passion for a bright future. This creates a sad feeling for Lennie and George as they will never be able to attain their dream.

                The book portrays Lennie to be innocent, naïve, and vulnerable. He enjoys playing around with George, petting soft things, and is unable to comprehend the consequences of his actions. Lennie is a large man but has the innocence of a little child. He has an immense strength that he doesn’t fully understand. In the beginning, Lennie pets a mouse and kills it. After which, he plays a game with George:

George looked sharply at him. “What’d you take outa that pocket?”
"Ain’t a thing in my pocket," Lennie said cleverly.
"I know there ain’t. You got it in your hand…"                     (5)

Lennie plays a childlike game with George and thinks that George can’t see the mouse that’s in his hand. He can’t even comprehend what he had done to it. The same happens when Lennie kills a pup by his harsh petting that Slim had given to him. When Curley’s wife approaches Lennie and starts talking to him, Lennie disregards George’s warning and continues to talk with her. When he starts petting Curley’s wife’s hair, the reader gets a feeling that something bad is going to occur. In fact, Lennie’s urge to pet soft hair is so big that he doesn’t let go. She starts creaming but Lennie does not let go. Instead, he covers her mouth and nose so that she would stop screaming. Unknowingly, he twists her neck and kills her. He does not understand the way of the world, and thinks like a child that everything is alright and irreversible. After killing her, Lennie acknowledges that, “I done a bad thing. I done another bad thing” (100). Then Lennie thinks about the puppy he had killed before and decides to, “throw him away… It’s bad enough like it is” (100). Lennie is innocent in the sense that he can’t differentiate between right and wrong. He only thinks about what will make George mad. He doesn’t recognize that one thing is not like the other and proceeds covering up the puppy, even though he had just killed this woman. This shows us of his innocence and makes us sympathetic to Lennie as a murderer. In essence, Lennie is an uncontrollable child in a body of a man.

                Lennie’s somewhat careless actions bring him to his demise. Whether Lennie is the one at fault for how he is, or not, George had the need to kill him. George’s last words to Lennie were about the rabbits in their dream. He had made sure that when Lennie would leave this world he would do it in a peaceful state. John Steinback produces sympathy towards Lennie in his book in a variety of ways. Through this tragic novel the reader, can sympathize with Lennie, as a child and as a human being.

Work Cited:

Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. Bantam Books: New York, 1975.