First Impressions about George and Lennies Relationship in Of Mice and Men :: essays research papers

Our first impressions of George are that he is fairly normal. He is quite small but still broad and strong. ‘He is small and quick with sharp strong features’. We also get the impression that he is smart as well because ‘quick’ suggests that he is quick thinking as well as fast. He is a lot more sensible than Lennie and has a lot more self discipline. It must be very frustrating for a man with such good physical and mental health to be dragged down by a friend like he is but he is so kind and therefore he would never let Lennie get into trouble and a couple of times he even risks his life to help him out. Steinbeck makes is obvious from the first moment that Lennie is mentally retarded. Many times he is referred to as animal like and having animal like features. He is like a big baby, he is huge and clearly very strong but he has the mind of a small child. Lennie's personality and life seem based on three things: soft things, devotion to George and his dream of one day owning a farm. It is quite sad and Steinbeck makes you feel really sorry for him be exaggerating his simplicity and his innocence. Lennie is absent-minded for a good portion of the novel. He is unaware of what he's doing sometimes until he has done it. For example, he enjoyed to pet soft objects. But we find out that while living in Weed, he decided to ’pet’ a woman’s dress but she thought that he was raping her so she screamed and he almost got himself killed. He is greatly forgetful and needs a lot of looking after otherwise he would never be able so survive and quite often this can come between his relationship with George. Lennie is completely incapable of living on his own because of his disability but because George is such a good man, he has almost given up his life and devoted it to helping Lennie. He mentions that he made a promise to Lennie’s auntie but it is also because he is such a good man and he would never let such an innocent man go just because of a disability. Their relationship is very similar to that of a parent and a child, the child (Lennie) needs the parent (George) to look after them otherwise they wouldn’t be able to survive.