The story is set during the Great Depression (Gradesaver; Enotes), and it starts in the Salinas River, somewhere “a few miles south of Soledad” (Par 1) with two men walking the same disgruntled path while seeing the world in extremely different views. Meet George Milton and Lennie Small, two migrant workers who have become the unlikeliest partners in life – George is a small and quick man, “with restless eyes and sharp, strong features,” while Lennie is “a huge man…with large, pale eyes” (Par 4). In the beginning of chapter one it would already be established that George is Lennie’s leader (Par 5) and in the latter parts, he is Lennie’s keeper, given that Lennie is helpless without him (Par 7; Par 135). Their relationship is amusing at times, what with two grown men threatening to leave each other with empty words (Par 105; Par 106; Par 112), as well as heartbreaking, for their closeness was sweet and gentle (Par 111), and yet also very plausible (Par 113), thus making their exchanges more real.
Notable is the fact that Steinbeck was able to introduce three minor yet important figures at the start of his novel: Aunt Clara, the dead woman who presumably raised Lennie (Par 84); the woman back in their hometown, Weed, who was the reason why they had to escape and begin anew for themselves in the first place (Par 97), and the rodents, particularly the mice and rabbits, with the mice establishing Lennie’s mental condition as well as his tendency to break lives accidentally (Par 84) while the rabbits displaying his fragile, child-like nature (Par 42) and innermost simplistic desires (Par 132). Steinbeck makes sure his theme on nature and his comparison between mice and men never goes unnoticed as he likens Lennie to animals in many of his paragraphs, from the description of how he moves (Par 4; Par 5; Par 72; Par 76; Par 80) to the way George always praises him with “Good boy!” (Par 53; Par 137) and even to his desire to live an idyllic life (Par 110).
Throughout chapter one, Steinbeck uses recurring symbols and imagery that would repeat itself during the last chapter of the book, though that is not the focus of this analysis; what this paper will focus on is how the author foreshadows the main events of the plot (CliffNotes), and how he scattered subtle yet foreboding clues as to the direction of the story while casting vivid imagery upon the reader’s imagination.
The exposition came in the middle of the story, as George talks to himself about the misfortunes Lennie has bestowed upon him through time (Par 97), and how despite that, they will still strive to brave their odds so long as they did so together, because that’s what set them apart from the other guys (Par 125). The plot twist also came early, as it was shown that Lennie liked stroking soft things, and that he did not believe it to be a bad thing (Par 120). And Steinbeck offered his audience a clean view of the end when George made Lennie promise “to hide in the brush” (Par 141) if he gets in trouble again, as if it was an absolute fact to be expected.
The most subtle and yet possibly most vivid symbolic device used by Steinbeck has to be that of the Sycamore tree; he utilized it to depict the time of day (Par 1), the atmosphere and tone of the upcoming scenario (Par 65), and finally, the foreboding mood which clues the reader that something will happen in the latter parts of the book, particularly because of the afterimage it leaves behind (Par 157).
Works Cited
“Of Mice and Men.” CliffNotes. Web.
“Of Mice and Men Summary and Analysis.” Gradeserver.com. Web.
“Of Mice and Men Summary.” Enotes. Web.
Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. Viking Penguin, Penguin Books USA, Inc. 1937.