Of Mice and Men

From what I remember of GCSE, Lennie is a mouse, because of his low intelligence combined with overpowering and uncontrollable physical strength, I think he has a mental condition, it renders him quite vulnerable amongst the other characters, as they can take advantage of his naivety. Also he is too trusting, i think, from what I can remember.

Curly's wife definitely fits the definition of 'mouse', she is the only woman on the ranch, which makes her lonely, friendless, desperately seeking attention from anyone, she is imprisoned within her loveless marriage and her old teenage dreams of making it big in hollywood have already been long since crushed. From what is divulged in the story, she has no family connections and her gender isolates her from everyone else, in the sense that she cannot relate to the other men, the way she would like to, and this position means she is constantly being judged/leered at/mocked/insulted by the men. I mean Steinbeck doesn't even provide his readers with her real name. She is a nameless extension of the person she is married to. And her personality (in my opinion) is not very likeable, definitely not compared with say Slim, so the men don't even really try to get to know her, and this coupled with the fact that these very poor men, in harsh economical times (you come to realise that much of a story can always be traced back to the social and historical context, the meaning, the reason, it is all interlinked to the context, like in this case how and why the men act the way they do around CW) don't want to cause any trouble which would equal them losing their job which they literally cannot afford to do, means they avoid Curley's wife, simply because she is a woman, she is married, given the circumstances she kind of becomes a liability. Almost like a temptress, who could 'lead them astray' or in this case, cause them to lost their job. The thing is, it is a little complicated because obviously she wants attention, she's only human and given how lonely she is, she is probably just looking for affection, so she will do anything and everything to get that, even if it means sexualising her demeanour, and stance and making everything this big provocative show. But the men make the mistake in thinking that she is just acting like a 'tart', a troublemaker, so they avoid her, and the more she tries to get attention by acting that way, the more the men steer clear just dismiss her behaviour as 'slutty/whatever, so it's just a stalemate, neither party will get what they want, which further renders her into her lonely vulnerable position, because simply cannot get the attention she wants and when she does, it's with the wrong person, at the wrong time.

Given the historical, social context (again, context plays a crucial role in influencing the story) Crooks is a black man, amongst white people. He is a mouse because of his race, he is subject to widespread and open racism, which he simply has to put up with. He has no fellow minorities to keep him company or relate to, or any people for that matter because he lives in a stable. He is literally and figuratively handed the same status as that of an animal. He is vulnerable because of his loneliness, (you can see now this constant recurring theme of loneliness, cropping up again and again, why am I telling you this, you're not stupid you probably know this already sorry.)



you get the idea...


I hope this helped, chances are you knew 80% or more of this already so I hope I didn't patronise you.