Of Mice And Men Character Analysis

There are few authors as mysteriously interesting as John Steinbeck. There are even fewer that are, or rather were, as sober and ‘sane’ as John Steinbeck was. All in all, Steinbeck was an interesting man, and now is an interesting legend to psychoanalyze. When reading, then further analyzing the characters and plot of ‘Of Mice and Men’ the reader can find out much about Steinbeck’s mentality. He was such a private man that this adventure into his head is a fun, yet challenging one. The most obvious characters to use from ‘Of Mice and Men’ to psychoanalyze John Steinbeck are the main characters George and Lennie. As stated by Elysa Gardner in USA Today, 2014, section Life on page 2 in reference to Lennie “{T}he gentle, doomed giant in Of Mice
Candy, Crooks, and even Candy’s dog represent something to Steinbeck. They represent emotions, hope, fear, bitterness, despair, and regret. They have no chance to improve their situations, and eventually will no longer even have what they do now. That is, until they hear about George and Lennie’s farm. Before that though, Carlson kills Candy’s dog. There’s the regret, Candy’s regret of not killing his dog instead of letting Carlson, a stranger, do it. It foreshadows Lennie’s death, and George’s reasoning for killing Lennie himself. It pains Candy greatly to no longer have his companion, but he has to keep moving, and so he does. With the hope of joining George and Lennie on their farm, a wonderfully innocent dream almost in reach, they move on. Then that almost tangible farm, that hope of something better, is snatched away with Lennie’s death. Without Lennie, the dream of the farm is no longer worth it to try to continue reaching for. There would be too many bad connotations for George, so he and the other two are just stuck for George was the only one who knew where the land was, and he would not bear thinking about it anymore. They will never have their own ranch for that was sealed when George put a bullet through Lennie’s head. Many emotions died with Lennie, and many more came into existence. Steinbeck put
That goal never being reached surely means something a well. In fact, that goal, that dream, was snatched away with the penetrating quickness of a gunshot from a best friend. Perhaps he was hinting at his view of life in general. In “John Steinbeck: An Introduction and Interpretation” by Joseph Fontenrose, John Steinbeck’s writing had “{A}n awareness of and sympathy with the non-human, with the physical and biological environment in all its power and magnitude, dwarfing and absorbing humanity.” This could not ring any truer in “Of Mice and Men”. The environment, the farm they were working on after running from Weed and the dream farm that would always be just out of reach, definitely had that quality to it. As an author, Steinbeck was introverted for the sake of his books, and just because he valued his privacy. As found out in Joseph R. Millichap’s “Research Guide to Biography and Criticism”, “Despite his considerable success and popularity, Steinbeck remained a very private person who jealously guarded the details of his personal life. His artistic philosophy also favored privacy, as he believed his works of fiction should be judged on their intrinsic merit without connection to his life.” All of this would lead one to thinking that John Steinbeck loved the land, perhaps preferring it to people. Steinbeck was introverted, yet he spent a great deal of his