Of Mice And Men Book Review Essay

Of Mice and Men Book Review People these days always say: “It’s not on the outside that matters, but what is on the inside which truly counts”. I feel that this statement always rings true in the areas that count. Morals, emotions, thoughts, and beliefs will always conquer the perfect body, tone and physical appearance or attributes. John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men perfectly shows how Lennie, one of the main characters, shows this attribute in a display case of his heart. To start, the characters of the book are George, Lennie, Carlson, Candy, Slim, Curley, his wife, Crooks, and Whit. The main characters, however, are George and Lennie. Uneducated and, in Lennie’s case, mentally handicapped farmhands working for Carlson at his farm in rural California. Lennie’s disability requires George, his lifelong friend, to care for him and keep him out of trouble. Lennie loves soft things like animals and unfortunately,
The opening and ending scenes in the book are the same, “On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees-willows fresh and green with every spring carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the winter’s flooding…” (Steinbeck 1). This imagery provides an amazing picture for the reader and could be interpreted as “Edenesque” by the reader based on the beauty of the surroundings. The fact that the book ends in this Edenesque landscape suggests the consuming of the apple in the bible where this sin is compared to the death and misunderstanding of Lennie. Steinbeck also uses foreshadowing in the case of the dead mouse and the story of the rape accusation. These two events line up perfectly with the death of the puppy and accidental murder of Curley’s Wife, an animal death, and then an escalation to the misdemeanor of a