From Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men

from John Ernst Steinbeck

Author:

John Ernst Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, on February 27, 1902 of German and Irish ancestry. His father, John Steinbeck, Sr., served as the County Treasurer while his mother, Olive (Hamilton) Steinbeck, a former school teacher, fostered Steinbeck's love of reading and the written word. During summers he worked as a hired hand on nearby ranches, nourishing his impression of the California countryside and its people.

After graduating from Salinas High School in 1919, Steinbeck attended Stanford University. Originally an English major, he pursued a program of independent study and his attendance was sporadic. During this time he worked periodically at various jobs and left Stanford permanently in 1925 to pursue his writing career in New York. However, he was unsuccessful in getting any of his writing published and finally returned to California.

His first novel, Cup of Gold was published in 1929, but attracted little attention. His two subsequent novels, The Pastures of Heaven and To a God Unknown, were also poorly received by the literary world.

Steinbeck married his first wife, Carol Henning in 1930. They lived in Pacific Grove where much of the material for Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row was gathered. Tortilla Flat (1935) marked the turning point in Steinbeck's literary career. It received the California Commonwealth Club's Gold Medal for best novel by a California author. Steinbeck continued writing, relying upon extensive research and his personal observation of the human condition for his stories. The Grapes of Wrath (1939) won the Pulitzer Prize.

During World War II, Steinbeck was a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune. Some of his dispatches were later collected and made into Once There Was a War.

John Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 "...for his realistic as well as imaginative writings, distinguished by a sympathetic humor and a keen social perception."

Throughout his life John Steinbeck remained a private person who shunned publicity. He died December 20, 1968, in New York City and is survived by his third wife, Elaine (Scott) Steinbeck and one son, Thomas. His ashes were placed in the Garden of Memories Cemetery in Salinas.

Summary of the book:

Chapter One:

Two men emerge from the path along the Salinas River that runs a few miles south of Soledad, California. Traveling to a farm for work. The two men walk in a path down to a deep pool near the river. Both men, George Milton and Lennie Small, wear denim trousers and coats. George is small and quick, dark of face with restless eyes and strong, sharp features. Every part of him is defined. Lennie, who walks behind him, is an enormous man with wide, sloping shoulders. George warns him that he should never drink water that isn't running. Lennie, who is mentally deficient, asks George where they are going, because he cannot remember. Lennie claims that he remembers about the rabbits, the only part of their plan that he can ever remember. George notices that Lennie has his hands in his pockets, and asks what he has. It is a dead mouse, that Lennie kept with him. George explains to Lennie that they are going to work on a ranch like the one in Weed from which they came, and tells Lennie not to speak when they get to the ranch, for their boss will think that Lennie is insane. He also warns him not to do the things that caused them to be run out of Weed. George tells Lennie to give him the dead mouse, and tells him that he might get him a live mouse if he can take care of it. Lennie remembers that a woman (Aunt Clara) would give mice to him, but George reminds Lennie that he always killed them. They eat cans of beans for dinner, and Lennie tells George that he likes them with ketchup. George, tells Lennie that without him he could do whatever he wanted, but Lennie gets him fired from every job they take. They got fired of their last job when Lennie wanted to feel a girl's dress, and she screamed, because she thought Lennie tried to rape her. George tells Lennie that at the first chance he gets, he will get Lennie a puppy, which he will find harder to kill than a mouse. Lennie asks George to tell him about the rabbits. George tells him the story which he has told Lennie many times: George and Lennie will have one day their own ranch. Someday they're going to raise enough money to have a small farm. They will have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch. George makes Lennie promise that he will not say a word, and tells him that if there is any trouble like last time, he should hide in the brush until George comes to look for him.

Chapter Two:

George and Lennie reach the bunk house at the farm. The old man who shows them the bunk house tells them that his boss was expecting them last night and was angry when they weren't there for work that morning. The old man, Candy, tells George and Lennie that the boss is a nice man, although he gives the stable buck hell whenever he's angry. The boss, a man in blue jeans and a flannel shirt, enters and asks George and Lennie for their work slips. George attempts to talk for Lennie, but the boss notices that Lennie is silent and tries to get him him to talk. George tells the boss that Lennie isn't bright, but he's strong as a bull and can do anything. The boss wonders why George is looking after Lennie, and he tells the boss that Lennie is his cousin and that he promised his mother that he would take care of him. George admits that he lied about Lennie being his cousin. The old man returns with his old sheepdog, and George criticizes Candy for listening to their conversation. Curley, a young man, enters looking for his father, the boss. He is very unfriendly to Lennie. When he leaves, Candy explains that Curley is like many short guys. He hates big guys. 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 for his own safety. Curley's Wife comes to the bunk house looking for her husband. She had rouged lips and red fingernails and wore a red cotton house dress. Lennie says that she's pretty. George warns him to keep away from her. Slim the jerkline skinner, a man with an ageless face who carried himself with great gravity, questions George and Lennie about what work they can do. Carlson, a large 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 he drowned four immediately,