OF MICE AND MEN by John Steinbeck (Summary)

 

OF MICE AND MEN

by John Steinbeck

(Summary) 

George and Lennie, two migrant workers during the Great Depression, walk along a trail on the Salinas River just south of Soledad, California. They are on their way to a new ranch, where they hope to be hired to “buck barley,” that is, to haul sacks full of grain. A bus driver recently let them out and told them the ranch was nearby. However, the walk is much longer than they anticipated.

George is a small, quick man with dark, suspicious eyes. Lennie is just the opposite: a naive, unintelligent mountain of a man. As they walk along, Lennie comes upon a pool of water and drinks thirstily; George warns him that the water might be bad as it has been stagnant in the sun, but Lennie pays him no heed. After Lennie drinks his fill, George quizzes him on the upcoming job. Lennie, however, fails to remember even the slightest detail of their current prospect. George reminds him that they have received work cards from Murray and Ready’s.

As George pats his pocket, where the work cards are kept, he notices that Lennie has something in his pocket as well: a dead mouse. Lennie explains that he likes to pet the mouse’s soft fur as he walks. George takes the mouse from Lennie and throws it into the bushes. He then admonishes Lennie for his behavior, warning him not to behave badly, as he has done so often in the past, and ordering him not to say a word when they meet the boss at the new ranch. He reminds Lennie of past misadventures, specifically an episode in the town of Weed in which Lennie assaulted a woman in a red dress because he thought her dress was pretty and wanted to feel it. The woman accused Lennie of attempting to rape her and George and Lennie had to run for their lives out of town. While recounting this incident, George complains that if he didn’t have to take care of Lennie he could live a normal life: “I could live so easy and maybe have a girl.”

George tells Lennie that they are going to bivouac a couple of miles away from the ranch so that they won’t have to work the morning shift the next day. They set up camp and George sends Lennie off to look for firewood so that they can heat up some beans. Lennie goes off into the darkness and returns in a moment; George instantly knows from Lennie’s wet feet that he has retrieved the dead mouse. He takes it from Lennie, who begins to whimper. George assures Lennie that he’ll let him pet a “fresh” mouse, just not a rotten one. They recall that Lennie’s Aunt Clara, whom Lennie refers to as “a lady,” used to give Lennie mice to play with.

Lennie fetches some wood and George heats up their beans. Lennie complains that they don’t have ketchup, which sets George off on a rant about having to care for Lennie. After this outburst, George feels ashamed. Lennie apologizes and George admits that he’s “been mean”. Lennie passive-aggressively offers to go away and live in a cave so that George can have fun. George resolves this short argument by agreeing to Lennie’s request to “tell about the rabbits,” which is Lennie’s shorthand for “talk about how things will be for us in the future.” George paints a picture of the future – a picture he has obviously painted countless times before – in which he and Lennie have their own place on their own farm and “live off the fat of the land.” He promises Lennie that they will have rabbit cages and that Lennie will be allowed to tend them. Lennie repeatedly interrupts George as he tells this story, but insists that George finish it to the end.

As they prepare to sleep, George reminds Lennie not to say a word during their interview with the boss the following day. He also tells Lennie that if he runs into trouble, as he has so many times before, he is to return to the place where they’ve camped, hide in the brush and wait for George.

The following morning, George and Lennie reach the bunk house at the farm. Candy, the old man who shows them the bunk house, tells them that his boss was expecting them the night before and was angry when they weren’t ready for work in the morning. Near his bed George finds a can of insect poison, which leads him to think that his bunk is infected, but the old man reassures him, telling him that person who had the bed before was a meticulous blacksmith named Whitey who kept the insect killer around even though there were no insects to kill.

As George prepares to meet the boss, Candy reports that he is a nice enough man although he takes his anger out on the black stable buck, Crooks. Soon enough, the boss enters and asks George and Lennie for their work slips. George attempts to speak for both Lennie and himself, but the boss notices Lennie’s silence and questions him directly. Lennie attempts to speak for himself, aping phrases that George has spoken, but sounds completely ridiculous. George tells the boss that Lennie isn’t bright, but that he’s as strong as a bull and an incredibly hard worker. The boss wonders why George is willing to take care of Lennie; George tells the boss that Lennie is his cousin and that he promised his mother to look after him. When the boss wonders why they left their last job, George tells him that they were digging a cesspool and completed the work. When the boss leaves, George scolds Lennie for failing to keep completely silent. George admits that he lied about Lennie being his cousin.

Candy returns with his old sheepdog, and George snaps at him for eavesdropping. Curley, a haughty young man, enters the bunk looking for the boss, who is his father. He behaves threateningly to Lennie. When he leaves, Candy explains that Curley, who is short, hates big guys like Lennie out of jealousy. George says that however tough Curley may be, he will be sorry if he picks a fight with Lennie, who is incredibly strong. Candy notes that Curley was recently married to a local beauty and that he has become more cocky ever since. Curley wears a left glove full of Vaseline to keep the hand soft for his wife, whom the old man thinks is a tart. George warns Lennie to avoid Curley.

On cue, Curley’s wife comes to the bunk house looking for her husband. She is provocatively dressed and quite flirtatious. When she leaves, George remarks that she’s a tramp, while Lennie says that she’s pretty. George warns him to keep away from her.

Next to enter is Slim, the widely respected jerkline skinner. Slim questions George and Lennie about what work they can do. Carlson, a large, big-stomached man, also enters the bunk house and asks Slim whether his dog had her litter last night. Slim tells him that she had nine puppies, but that he drowned four immediately since she couldn’t feed so many. Carlson complains about the smell of Candy’s old sheepdog and tells Slim that Candy should put it out of its misery. Curley enters again and confronts George, asking if his wife has been around. George admits that she was at the bunk house. Curley seems eager to start a fight with anyone.

Chapter Three opens on the next day. After working hours, as the other men play horseshoes outside, Slim and George return to the bunk house. We learn that Slim has allowed Lennie to have one of his puppies. Slim praises Lennie for his incredible work ethic, which leads George to talk about his past with Lennie. The two grew up as neighbors and George took Lennie as a travel and work companion when Lennie’s Aunt Clara died. George says that when he first began traveling with Lennie he found it funny to play pranks on him. One day he ordered Lennie to jump in a river even though he couldn’t swim and Lennie unthinkingly obeyed. After George fished him out, Lennie was completely grateful, having forgotten that George had ordered him into the river in the first place. After this episode, George decided against having fun at Lennie’s expense.

At Slim’s insistence, George tells about the episode in Weed that led them to seek work elsewhere. Lennie saw a woman in a red dress and, overcome by an urge to feel the pretty fabric, he stupidly grabbed the woman. The woman fled and told the men of Weed that Lennie had raped her. George and Lennie were forced to hide from a lynch mob and sneak out of Weed under cover of night.

Lennie appears with his new puppy and George tells him to take the puppy back to its mother for its own safety. After Lennie leaves, the men come in from their horseshoe game, which Crooks has apparently won. Carlson begins complaining again about the smell of Candy’s old dog. He goads Candy to shoot the dog, which Candy refuses to do. Carlson then offers to shoot the dog himself. After Slim speaks up in favor of shooting the dog, Candy reluctantly allows Carlson to take the dog outside with his Luger and a shovel. Candy sinks into a deep melancholy and the men try to lighten the atmosphere with talk of cards and magazine articles. Just as they begin a game of euchre, a shot rings out in the night.

Crooks enters and talks with Slim about fixing a mule’s hoof. He also mentions that Lennie is playing with the pups in the barn. Slim leaves for the barn as George and Whit begin a conversation about women. Whit mentions that the men usually go to a whorehouse or two on the weekend and they welcome George to come along. Whit also laughs about Curley’s trouble keeping tabs on his wife, who appears eager to spend time with every man on the ranch aside from her husband. On cue, Curley bursts in to the bunkhouse and demands to know the whereabouts of his wife and Slim. After he learns that Slim is in the barn he leaves. Lennie, at the same time, returns from the barn, having been told to stop playing with the pups for the night.

As they wind down for the evening, Lennie asks George to tell him “about the rabbits,” and George launches into his monologue about their proposed self-sustaining farm - complete with rabbits, pigs, cats and a vegetable garden. Candy, who has been listening in, asks how much such a place would cost. George, though put off at first by Candy’s nosiness, eventually lets on that he has a lead on a plot of land that could be bought for six hundred dollars. Candy reveals that he has a secret stash of money - three-hundred and fifty dollars - and offers to give it all to George and Lennie if they’ll let him live on their farm and work as a housekeeper. After a quick calculation George figures that they could make a down payment on the property after only a month’s work. The three men sit, enraptured and astounded that their dream of a self-sufficient farm life might actually become a reality.

Curley returns with Whit, Carlson and Slim. Curley has accused Slim of eying his wife, a charge which Slim and the others laugh off. Lennie, who is still dreaming about the rabbits, also smiles, which leads Curley to confront him aggressively. Curley punches Lennie in the face. Lennie does not immediately fight back, instead crying and calling to George for help. When Curley doesn’t back off, George tells Lennie to “get ‘em.” Lennie catches Curley’s next punch in his massive paw and crushes down on his hand. George tells Lennie to let go, but Lennie only grips harder out of fear. Curley flops like a fish. By the time Lennie finally relaxes his grip, Curley’s hand has been ruined. Before Curley goes to the hospital, he agrees to pretend that he has caught his hand in a machine. Lennie is afraid that he has done something bad, but George reassures him that he hasn’t.

The next night, while all of the men are off at the whorehouse spending their weeks’ pay except for the feeble threesome of Crooks, Candy and Lennie. The setting is the “little shed that leaned off the wall of the barn” that makes up Crooks’ quarters. Steinbeck gives us a glimpse at the quiet, neat, lonesome life of the black stable buck. While Crooks is belittled and ordered around in the ranch at large, in his bunk he is sovereign; none of the other workers impede upon his living space.

Lennie, however, doesn’t understand the unwritten code of racial segregation. He appears in Crooks’ doorway while checking on his pup in the barn. Crooks tells Lennie to go away, but the simple big man cannot understand that he isn’t wanted. Crooks at last relents and allows Lennie to sit with him and talk. Lennie tells Crooks “about the rabbits” and Crooks vents about his mistreatment as an African-American. Their conversation takes an unsettling turn as Crooks teases Lennie about his lack of self-reliance; he tauntingly asks Lennie what he would do if George were injured. Unable to think hypothetically, Lennie thinks that George is actually under threat. With some difficulty, Crooks calms Lennie down and takes on a kindlier demeanor. His sour attitude remains, however, as he tells Lennie that his dreams of owning a farm with rabbits is unlikely to amount to anything tangible.

Candy comes by looking for Lennie and Crooks is secretly pleased that after so many years of solitude he is finally part of a sort of social gathering. They continue to discuss their plan to buy a farm and Crooks begins to warm to the scheme, even offering his own money and services if they’ll take him on as well.

Just as they reach the height of enthusiasm for the plan, Curley’s wife enters, ostensibly looking for Curley. She insults the men, noting their feebleness. This offends the two mentally sound farmhands but Lennie finds her fascinating. She voices her frustration at having no one to talk to and launches into a speech about how she could have been a movie star if she hadn’t met Curley. She clearly dislikes Curley and tells the men that she knows he was beaten in a fight - that his injured hand did not result from a machine accident. Lennie eagerly tells her “about the rabbits” and she dismisses their plan as a pipe-dream. As he talks, though, she notices the bruises on his face and deduces his role in Curley’s injury. She flirtatiously congratulates Lennie on bringing Curley down a notch and Lennie grows increasingly enamored with her beauty.

Crooks sharply tells her to leave and Curley’s wife turns on him viciously, reminding him that at any time she could accuse him of raping her, which would lead to his death. Crooks and Candy silently tolerate her superiority until Candy hears the sound of the men returning, which leads Curley’s wife to slip away back to her house. Soon George arrives looking for Lennie; he admonishes Candy for talking about the plan to buy the farm. Crooks assures them, however, that he doesn’t really want to be a part of their plan after all.

On a Sunday afternoon as Lennie sits in the barn, contemplating a dead puppy. He has killed his pup by petting it too hard. Lennie is gripped by a growing panic that George will find the dead puppy and that now he “won’t get to tend the rabbits”. Curley’s wife enters in a dress decorated with red ostrich feathers. Lennie, who has been warned to have nothing to do with her, briefly tries to resist being drawn into conversation, but she prevails, telling him that the other men are too busy with their horseshoe tournament to care whether he talks to her or not. She sees the dead puppy and consoles him, saying that no one will care about the loss of a mere mutt.

She is clearly starved for conversation and launches into a reprise of her discontented story of what might have been. She insists that she could have been an actress. Lennie fails to understand her at all, however, as he continues to return to the dilemma of the dead puppy and his anxiety over being denied the right to tend the rabbits. Curley’s wife angrily asks him why he is so obsessed with rabbits, and Lennie thoughtfully replies that he likes to pet nice things.

Curley’s wife observes that Lennie is “jus’ like a big baby” and invites him to stroke her soft hair. Lennie begins to feel her hair and likes it very much indeed, which leads him to pet it too hard. Curley’s wife begins to struggle, which sends Lennie into a panic. He grabs a hold of her hair and muffles her screams. When she continues to struggle, Lennie grows angry. He shakes her violently, telling her to keep quiet so that George doesn’t hear her. Before he knows it, he has broken her neck. She lies dead on the hay. Lennie observes that he has “done a bad thing” and covers her body with hay. He then disappears from the barn with the dead puppy in hand. Candy comes looking for Lennie in the barn and discovers the body of Curley’s wife. He fetches George, who knows exactly what has happened when he sees the body. Candy warns that Curley will lynch Lennie if they don’t let him get away. After a sombre exchange in which Candy and George acknowledge that their dream of a farm can’t amount to reality anymore, George decides the best course of action. He tells Candy to spread the news of the death to the rest of the men and to pretend that he (George) was never present in the barn. When George leaves, Candy scolds the corpse for being a “God damn tramp”. Candy fetches the men and Curley immediately connects the killing to Lennie. He and Carlson run off to fetch guns. Meanwhile, George and Slim hypothesize that Lennie must have accidentally killed her, in the same way he got in trouble in Weed. George asks Slim whether Lennie might just be locked up and Slim replies that Curley will want to shoot him. Carlson returns and announces that his Luger has been stolen. He blames Lennie for the theft.

Curley returns with a shotgun. He tells Whit to fetch the Soledad deputy sherrif, Al Whits, and organizes a posse from the rest of the men. George asks Curley not to shoot Lennie, but Curley refuses to listen, saying that Lennie is armed with the Luger. George deliberately misleads the posse, saying that Lennie would have headed south (rather than north, the direction from which they approached the farm). Curley warns George to join the hunt for Lennie “so we don’t think you had nothin’ to do with this”.

Lennie waits in the bushes near the Salinas River. He nervously talks to himself, airing his worry that George won’t let him tend the rabbits because of the bad things he did back at the ranch.

Lennie then hallucinates. He imagines the figure of his Aunt Clara - a plump, aproned woman with thick glasses - who scolds him for getting George into so much trouble. Lennie cries, begging Aunt Clara for forgiveness, and says that he will go off in the hills, where he can’t bother George. Lennie then imagines a gigantic rabbit that mocks him forever believing that he could tend the rabbits. The imaginary rabbit says that George will beat him with a stick when he arrives.

As Lennie sobs, George emerges from the brush. Lennie admits that he did a bad thing, but George appears not to care. Still upset, Lennie goads George into participating in their ritual routine of chastisement and forgiveness - he feeds George his lines about how much fun he would have if he didn’t have to look after Lennie, and Lennie offers to go live in the hills and leave George alone. Lennie then requests the coup-de-grace: the story of how they’re different from other workers and of how they’ll have a farm together. George repeats these monologues woodenly. He then tells Lennie to take off his hat as he continues to recount “how it will be” for them. He orders Lennie to kneel and pulls out Carlson’s Luger. As the voices of the other men in the search party near their location, George tells Lennie one more time “about the rabbits,” tells Lennie that they’re going to get the farm right away, and shoots his companion in the back of the head.

Slim, Curley and Carlson arrive immediately after the shot is fired. Slim immediately interprets the scene accurately. Carlton and Curley, however, assume that George wrestled the Luger away from Lennie before shooting him. George, speaking in a whisper, affirms their false version of the events.

The novel closes as Slim reassures George that he “had to do it,” while Carlson and Curley look on in confusion, wondering why they are so upset.