Of Mice and Men is a touching novella written by John Steinbeck, describing the difficult life in California in the 1937. Written from 3rd person omniscient, the plot is mainly about two men, Lennie and George, who have totally different personalities however are friends and travel together. Lennie, having a mind of a child, has several personal limitations which are his inability to learn from mistakes, his crazy obsession with "petting" soft things and the incapacity to control his strength, which all lead to his tragic deathâ¦After a various number of similar mistakes that Lennie has made, he still doesn't learn his lesson and "'gets in trouble'" again. One of the examples is Lennie killing animals he wants to pet: when Lennie and George were on their way to the bunk house Lennie was caught caring dead mice in his pocket one of which he, from his words "found⦠dead" and "didn' kill it" whereas the other mouse "[he] found⦠lyin' right beside the road" and "broke it pettin' it" Apparently, even before that "a lady used to give [mice] to [Lennie]" but she stopped because Lennie "always killed 'em".
Lennie James
Lennie James
Lennie JamesLennie uses an excuse saying that the mice were too little so it was hard not to kill them; he hasn't learned that he shouldn't pet the mice too hard since they are little. But even when Lennie got an animal that "ain't so little", a dog, he killed him as well. Lennie "made like [he] was gonna smack himâ¦an'â¦an' [he] done it" Lennie didn't mean to hit the dog, but he should have learned by now that he should be careful with the animals since they get killed easily.
Another example of Lennie not being able to learn from his mistakes is the way he gets in trouble...