How Steinbeck creates sympathy in Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men is a novella set on a ranch in the Northern western state of California written by Californian novelist John Steinbeck and then published in the late 1930’s. Set in the time of The Great Depression and The nationwide effective Wall Street Crash the book features characters all around who have depressing lives but focusing in on two paradoxical characters that are always juxtaposed to one another.

Steinbeck has placed us with two characters that we are able to connect with, being able to sympathise with their dilemmas and problems as the two being long-time companions with a strong relationship but also being a priority to George as he must look after Lennie seeing as he has a mental dis-order. George Milton & Lennie Small being the two ranch workers who always find themselves fleeing from town to town, ranch to ranch; never being able to settle down they find themselves moving up northwest after Lennie gets himself into a bit of trouble back in their previous location Weed.

As of after he winds up in a situation where he saw a red dress of a nice fabric that he had liked and decided to grab, this frightening the woman and resulting in her screaming rape and leaving Lennie and George with no other option but to run away as he too would have faced the death penalty as being an accomplice of Lennie.

Steinbeck describes George as the more complex character(Quote) for the reader to get to know, he is given the description of quite a streetwise and aware character from Steinbeck’s definition using the phrases "small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp strong features” suggesting he is like a mouse and lets us in on some visual imagery early on in the story as he tells us “Every part of him was defined: small, strong hands, slender arms, a thin and bony nose."

Whereas Steinbeck has stood him right next to his opposite who was completely on the other side of the scale. The Nobel prize winning author is a biographical writer to an extent as he has based some parts of this tale on his real life experience as he did actually know a Lennie in his life time that did have this disability and getting him into quite a bit of trouble as back in that day and age mental illnesses weren’t looked upon with any deeper meaning or thorough analysis as you were seen as slow or dumb.

I feel sympathy towards Lennie Small’s character because of his circumstance which prevents him from acting the maturity of his age and the type of maturity that is needed in this society and time he is living in. With such tragic events in time happening all around him in this particular moment of his life that is presented in the book his innocence was captured even more than I think it ever would be. Small is the fellow ranch worker of George Milton and long-time best friend by default and obligation being that Lennie is Mentally Handicapped and as a Favour to Lennie’s only lasting relative his dead aunt Clara George had promised to take care of him.

As it is obvious to imagine Lennie can be a weighing burden to carry mentally and in some physical cases; he is a tall, powerful man (with an ironic surname) who sees life through the eyes and mind of a little child. Lennie has a fetish with nice feeling objects because he likes to touch and rub the textures of things he likes which resembles his child like qualities and obsessions but can also cause big problems for him later on in the novella.

Lennie often asks George repetitive questions, a commonly known one that comes up is him asking when they are going to move to the the house on the farm and when he is going to tend the rabbits but because of the financial wreck and poor living conditions they are in Lennie doesn’t understand that he has to go without at times. Steinbeck has Milton in the spotlight of a single parent trying to look after himself and Lennie which often leaves him releasing his stress onto Small in forms of anger and lashing out as you can see this early on in book when milton tells him how “Whatever we ain’t got, that’s what you want.

God a’mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy”. Remembrance being one of the many problems Lennie struggles with it is not fair that he should be told how much he is holding someone back all the time as it is not his intentional fault, but as we delve deeper into the tale of the two ranch workers we soon learn that the barley bucker was no stranger to the use of selective hearing.

This is proven various times in the novella but the one incident that keeps striking my mind as it brought a sense of deliberate delinquency for the rules was when he came back to their cabin with the puppy that slim had let him keep. After being told not to move it from the barn countless times by Milton these orders did not take place; Knowingly disobeying Milton’s orders small had went straight to his bed laid down faced towards the wall with the pup under his garments so that George could not see and even when George did confront him and tell him to take the dog back he lied about it at first until George had taken it off him by force.

These incidents always leaving the reader knowing that Lennies circumstance is not always the 100% reason for his defiant actions. As I have given many reasons why sympathy is thrown upon Lennie’s character there are also loads of reasons which put a form of irritance on his name as it comes across as him being deliberate about the wrong he is doing at the time.

Various incidents had come up where small had abused his trust and used his disability to his advantage to get himself out of trouble, this point is exercised early on in the tale when Lennie has a pet mouse that he had kept in his pocket that he liked to feel and pet but was dead because he had been petting it too hard. When George asks Lennie to hand over the mouse from his pocket but not knowing he had moved it from his pocket to his hand; Small replied with the quick witted answer “Ain’t a thing in my pocket”.

As expected this irritated George thus being a perfect example of why Lennies disability can’t be the cover up for all of his actions and he sees how far he can push the boundary with people before he gets in trouble. Small knows exactly what he has to do and what he has to say to keep George on sight as we witness whenever he is in trouble he automatically knows not to let George find out otherwise he’ll get caught out and won’t be able to for fill his long-time dream of tending the rabbits on their own little farm where they would be able to “live off the fat of the lan”.