Isolation and sacrifice in "Of Mice and Men" by Steinbeck

¶ … Mice and Men

Isolation in Steinbeck's of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men is a novelette by John Steinbeck that is filled with isolated characters desperate to latch onto the American dream. The dream of the protagonists, George and Lennie, is to have a place of their own in Depression-Era southern California. Things look promising as the itinerant workers get jobs on a farm, make friends, and devise a plan to make the dream possible. The problem, however, is that George and Lennie get in the way of themselves -- Lennie by being Lennie, and George by abandoning his role as "brother's keeper" for a night on the town. An accidental death suddenly has Lennie running for his life (which, George decides, he has no chance of saving). George, therefore, shoots and kills his friend before the mob can have at him. George is left to cope with the loss not only of his friend but also of the dream -- and he wanders off to be consoled by another one of the same fold, who has also harbored dreams. In the tale, Steinbeck offers a view of isolation in the midst of the dream-like panacea of Americana: a kind of Hobbesian-take on the American world. This paper will explore Steinbeck's creation. It proposes that Steinbeck's vision of America was of an orphaned people wandering without the shelter of friendship/fulfillment, isolated from life and each other, with only what Eugene O'Neill would call "pipe dreams." What Steinbeck appears to say is that isolation is the common fate of all in Of Mice and Men.

Nina Baym notes that Steinbeck "expresses his sense that America's best times are past and locates value in…socially marginal characters" (1740). Such a sense is immediately given in Mice and Men when George and Lennie appear (wandering) on the scene like a couple of stray sheep who have gone away from the flock. Thirsty, Lennie (the simple, large, dim-witted innocent) stoops to drink from a stagnant pool of water. George, who knows not to drink from water that is not running -- even commenting on the water's scum -- decides to follow Lennie's example and drink as well. "You'd drink out of a gutter if you was thirsty," (3) says Lennie truthfully. The sentiment he expresses is one of acceptance and humility -- but it also tells something of the two: they are practically drinking from the gutter; they are thirsty; and (for all they know) good times are over.

The difference between Lennie and George, however, is in their attitude toward life. Lennie is too simple to even remember the object of their journey, while George is too bitter to be hopeful that anything good might ever come of it. Yet, these are not two-dimensional characters created by Steinbeck. They are complex, and their complexities are expressed in unique ways: for example, Lennie may be slow, but he himself is not without his dreams: he longs to be part of the soft, simple side of nature -- to hold it and caress it; George, on the other hand, may appear cynical and lousy -- but the fact is that he takes care of the innocent Lennie and keeps him from coming to harm. Unfortunately, from a Hobbesian viewpoint, both are doomed to failure, for inside Lennie is a giant strength that cannot be controlled, and inside George is a selfishness that wants only to be free of its responsibility.

Steinbeck himself based these characters on real people and described meeting and working alongside the real-life Lennie:

Lennie was a real person. He's in an insane asylum in California right now. I worked alongside him for many weeks. He didn't kill a girl. He killed a ranch foreman. Got sore because the boss had fired his pal and stuck a pitchfork right through his stomach. I hate to tell you how many times. I saw him do it. We couldn't stop him until it was too late. (Parini)

Jay Parini notes that it is the unstoppable craving (or dreaming) that causes the characters to come to harm -- for Curley's wife and Lennie, especially.

Curley's wife, in fact, is a pure symbol of the isolation to be found in the American landscape: dreams and cravings for attention that have gone and continue to go on unfulfilled. "Elaine Steinbeck, the writer's widow, recalls: 'I asked John once, "Why didn't you name Curley's wife?' And he said, 'For one good reason. She's not a person, she's a symbol. She has no function, except to be a foil -- and a danger to Lennie'" (Parini). Curley's wife, in a sense, is the American dream (with all of its seductive charm and deadly allure). Lennie, then, is everyone who falls for it -- out of the simplicity and purity of his own heart, not knowing his own strength and inability to control it.

Yet, elsewhere, Steinbeck treats of Curley's wife as though she were more than a mere symbol -- as though she were, in fact, human. Such is the richness and complexity of the novelette that even its author can find new depth in his creation: "She is not highly sexed particularly but knows instinctively that if she is to be noticed at all, it will be because someone finds her sexually desirable….Her craving for contact is immense" (Parini). Her craving, ironically, is no greater than anyone else's in Mice and Men -- only some, like Slim, are able to bear up under it better than others. They are the ones who have slipped into their isolation and accepted it as the bleak, stark fate of everyone who has ever loved or desired to be part of something whole.

For those who can't control the longing and desire -- that is to say, for Lennie and Curley's wife, the answer is worse: The answer for them both, Steinbeck suggests, is death.