[Vixxen]

I always thought the glove fulla' vaseline and "keepin that hand soft for his wife" meant that he put vaseline in the glove so that he could hit his wife and it wouldn't hurt her so much. BUT then someone told me it meant that he was keeping his hand soft so that he could do sexual stuff with her LOL.
Which is the real reason?

[temt91]

The latter.

[ch0c0h01ic]

It's for the intimate cuddles beneath a duvet.

[3107a]

Lol vixxen! sorry to tell you but it's the latter =)

[Aaron_1507]

Isnt there a deeper meaning however e.g the hands represents the dreams and the vaseline is 'keeping the dream viable' and then he goes and gets his hand crushed therefore crushing the dream, in this case the dream that george and lennie share, is this is a valid point or not?

[mufc4life]

Anything is a valid point in English Lit, depending on how you argue it and the evidence you provide.

[3107a]

(Original post by Aaron_1507)
Isnt there a deeper meaning however e.g the hands represents the dreams and the vaseline is 'keeping the dream viable' and then he goes and gets his hand crushed therefore crushing the dream, in this case the dream that george and lennie share, is this is a valid point or not?

I've never heard of that before.. i guess it's quite interesting...but Curley doesn't really believe in a dream (or at least it's not spoken about)

But it is really interesting

[Aaron_1507]

i think it is aimed more at lennie and george's dream

[The Sherminator]

Well, when we did OMaM we said it was the latter suggestion you made OP. How that helps the guy, I don't really understand.
I don't think he would hit his wife if he wanted it to hurt only a little

[3107a]

Hmm, i guess it makes sense... Thanks it's quite interesting to know =)... i might just say some interper...

[nexttime]

i think you can read a lot of things into any novel really, i doubt that the author intended for half of them to actually mean anything. read into it what you will

but when i was taught it it was the latter, yes. if he wanted to hurt her less when he hit her he could, erm, hit her less hard? (or not at all, heaven forbid).

[3107a]

Lol hahaha!!! =) Love this thread

[Fiasco]

That's why George says it's a "dirty thing to tell around". So yea, it's the latter intrepretation - though you could offer your own intrepretation, might score you some marks.

[Aaron_1507]

x2 author's get too much credit

[lauralegend]

Also, theres a bit of a double dream thing going on there. Not only is lennie and georges dream crushed, but curleys dreams of being a succesful boxer is quite literally crushed too =]

[Aaron_1507]

MMM interesting except curley is an ex-lightweight, notice the EX... not sure

[PrideOfTheSouth]

Another 'deep' understanding of it is that the author is trying to portray Curley as keeping a hard pretence on the outside so to protect his 'soft' inside.

[Cate15]

the old glove fulla vaseline.
love it.

[The Sherminator]

Sometimes authors just write things, there aren't many meanings to it. I doubt Steinbeck was sitting there thinking, "Yes, that will get them thinking about what I really meant"

[jc123]

The latter