Of Mice & Men..

fliss1992

As a practice for GCSE English I need to do a presentation..

My question is as follows..

How is tragedy central to the charaterisations in the novel?

I have decided to focus on Lennie Small and Curley's wife.

Is anyone able to help a little?

Reply 1

tsr_username01

As it asks how tragedy is "central" to story, it probably wants you to refer to how all the way through, it builds up to what happens at the end, and foreshadows it all the way through the book. Some ideas for points to start you off could be:

> Lennie's history with the girl in the red dress at Weed, and how Curley's wife has very similar characteristics-could this be suggesting something just as, or possibly more tragic will happen with her.

> How just after Lennie first sees Curley's wife, he is warned by George and later gets into a fight with Curley-could this again pre-empt that tragedy was the only thing that was going to happen with Lennie and Curley's wife?

>Lennie is portrayed as a tragic character throughout, from the very first chapter where George mentions they have had to move from every job they've ever had, because of Lennie.

> Lennie is shown to be reliant on George, but every time he encounters Curley's wife during the book, he is alone (i.e., without George), this could be suggestive to the reader that without George=trouble; therefore Curley's wife=trouble.