How Is Lennie A Sympathetic Character In Of Mice And Men

Steinbeck presents Lennie to be responsible and irresponsible when he is not with George. Steinbeck shows how he is responsible when he sticks up for George, “He ain’t never been hurt, ‘cause he’s careful.” This quote also suggests Lennie realising himself how is irresponsible for his actions and how he needs George to guide him. This is because Lennie gets quite anxious and angry at the thought of not having George, “He stood up and walked dangerously towards Crooks.” Steinbeck presents Lennie to be irresponsible for his actions when he lets their secret of their dream, slip, “George says we gonna have alfalfa for the rabbits.” This shows

“I'm going for my shotgun. I’ll kill the son-of-a-bitch myself.” (Steinbeck 96). In the book, Of Mice and Men, Curley shows that he is a very truculent person. He wants to diminish Lennie, Lennie doesn't realize there is a complication because he can not develop things in his mind as easily as the other men. At the end of the story, Lennie makes a very bad mistake and in response he gets killed because he becomes a danger to other men. Mercy killing in Lennie's situation was the better decision because his friend George shot him. George was putting him out of his , if George wouldn't have killed Lennie then Curley would have. Through the whole book Curley talks about his hatred for Lennie, and at the end he shows it by threatening Lennie's

Part of Lennie’s character is being uneducated, and slow. Lennie is always forgetting important information. “Lenny looked timidly over to him.” “George?” Yeah, what ya want?” “Where we goin’, George?” “The little man jerked down the brim of his hat and scowled over at Lennie.” “So you forgot that awready, did you?” “I gotta tell you again do I? “Jesus Christ you’re a crazy bastard!” “I forgot,” Lennie said softly.(Page 4 of Mice and Men). As you can see this conversation of quotes proves many different points. First, it shows Lennie forgetting where him and George were

Another one of Lennie's character traits is that he is reliant. Lennie demonstrates this trait various times in the book because he relies too much on George. One of the times when Lennie is reliant is when he relies on George to tell him what to say. George tells Lennie what to say because they think if their employer knows about what Lennie did in the other town he might not want them around. In this case Lennie relies on George to tell him what to say because George and Lennie want the job, so in case Lennie messes up George can cover for him. Lennie is also reliant when he and George are by the Salinas River and they are camping out. “Lennie just stood there while George gathered the food and fire wood” (page 12). This is important because Lennie relies on George to provide food and warmth. A final example of why Lennie is reliant is when George tells Lennie that he can’t ever talk or make any contact with Curley’s wife. “She said

Throughout the book Lennie has not changed at all really because he forgets things and also cannot remember everything well at all. Because of this Lennie can’t really change in this book at all. Though little changes have occurred. He was once a gentle giant but now realizes how dangerous he really is. Lennie is a loving person that loves soft and hairy animals. He likes rabbits, rats, mice, and dogs. He likes animals that are soft to the touch. George does not like the idea of Lennie holding young animals or mice and rats because he will kill them on accident and does not want Lennie petting a dead mouse or dog. On page 9 in “Of Mice and Men” Steinbeck writes, “I wasn’t doin’ nothing bad with it, George. Jus’ strokin’ it.’ George stood up and threw the mouse as far as he could into the darkening brush, then he stepped to the pool and washed his hands.” Lennie is stroking a dead mouse when George notices and takes the mouse from him and throws it as far as he can. This shows how Lennie likes furry and hairy things. But when he handles them he accidentally kills them because he is too strong and doesn’t know how to control it.

He can rarely think for himself and make his own decision. “I want you to stay with me, Lennie. Jesus Christ, somebody’d shoot you for a coyote if you were by yourself” (Steinbeck, p. 14). George does not trust lennie to live by himself. He thinks Lennie would not be able to hold his own and get a job. George is sympathetic towards lennie so he lets lennie stay with him. Lennie Would make a mistake like touching a girl for too long and hurting her which would cause everyone to run after him and he could not do that without George. This makes us sympathetic toward george because he makes bad decisions and gets himself into a lot of

Everyone has had a caretaker or guardian to protect and care for them at some period in time. Developing into an adult is often times when a person becomes able to live independently. However, this is not the case for Lennie Small from the story, “Of Mice and Men” as a result of his disability. Being dependant on other people, Lennie needs a caretaker because of the lack of family to protect him. Someone without family relation, George, rises to the position as his caretaker in the harsh, unforgiving circumstances they have at the moment. Dreaming of a better future, George has to carry Lennie from job to job in order to eventually collect enough money to finally claim their land as their own. George has good, honest intentions for Lennie and only strives to give him the best conditions even if it meant he had to pull the trigger against him.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is about two men, George and Lennie who travel from ranch to ranch hoping to make enough money to buy their own land. Buying the land is what George and Lennie talk about constantly, this is in fact their American Dream. They have recently left a town called Weed because of an incident that happened there and are now heading to Soledad to work on another ranch. John Steinbeck was successful in making Lennie a sympathetic character because he portrays Lennie as a big strong muscular man that has basically no brain, so he doesn’t really know his own strength so when he hurts someone or does something bad you can’t really blame him.

<br>A reader can understand very vividly from his actions and attitudes that George is sensible and able to think quickly in a situation. He seems to have a very good understanding of the nature of others, especially of their attitudes towards Lennie, for example, that if the boss hears Lennie talk and realises his handicapped, then it is unlikely they will get work. He also knows, to make Lennie repeat things two or three times over to himself, to help him remember, for example when he slowly repeats, "Hide in the brush till I come for you, can you remember that?" to Lennie. He also knows that Lennie is likely to do things and attempt to hide them, such as when Lennie appears from his walk in the woods, and is immediately suspected of smuggling a dead

Despite the impact on his own life, George chooses to take care of the disabled and childlike Lennie as they search for work in the fields and valleys of California. When they are camping in the woods, Lennie keeps on insisting on Ketchup with his beans until George finally explodes. “Well, we ain’t got any,” (Steinbeck 1937, p-12). Shortly afterwards though George’s high moral principles reappear when he tells Lennie he was just fooling. This indicates the reader that George does not want to hurt Lennie’s feeling in any way. Despite

In my opinion, Lennie Small is the most interesting character in Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck does a very good job describing and characterizing Lennie's personality. Lennie's character is, indeed, quite unique. A large man with enormous strength, yet kind and childlike, he seems to find joy in simple life pleasures like petting a furry animal and making the water ripple. Lennie's greatest difficulty seems to be remembering; and it is the lack of the ability to remember that ultimately leads to his tragedy at the end of the book. In the novel, Steinbeck seems to reinforce Lennie's characteristics of strength, kindness, childlike manner, and somewhat animal-like personality.

The personality of George and Lennie are demonstrated by the use of different verbs and adverbs. Typically, the descriptive words used towards Lennie demonstrate his absence of maturity. For example, when Steinbeck mentions “dabbled,” “shapeless,” and “timidly,” he is trying to display Lennie’s indecision and hesitation when it comes to dealing with struggles, conflicts, or anything. On the other hand, Steinbeck uses adverbs such as, “sharply” and “gently,” which suggests the fact that George thinks deeply before he speaks or takes action. Overall, the reader is able to surmise, that Lennie still has state of mind where he requires the care of an adult, in this case, George. In addition, Lennie looks up to George as a role model because he believes if he emulates what George does, he will not land in

First of all Lennie's mental state lead to his death because Lennie couldn't’ verbally defend himself. There were many instances in the book where Lennie would make a bad decision and couldn’t defend himself. In chapter five Lennie accidentally killed his puppy by petting too hard "You ain't so little as mice. I didn’t bounce you hard.(42)" He doesn’t take responsibility and tell George and decides to try to hide the puppies body. Lennie was too scared to tell anyone and made the wrong decision.

“Look, George. Look what I done” (Steinbeck, Pg. 3). Here Steinbeck gives us the idea that Lennie looks up to George in everything he does like a child does to his parents. Lennie can’t take of himself since he is mentally handicapped so we get an idea that even though they are just friends, George is like a father figure to Lennie. Also by the word choice in the dialogue we can see that Lennie communicates in a particular way like if he just learn to speak, therefore he could be compared as a child. “I wasn’t doin’ nothing bad with it, George. Jus’ strokin’ it.” Steinbeck uses dialogue to give us an idea of George’s strong personality. “Don’t let him pull you in-but- if the son of a bitch” This quote gives us the idea that George’s personality is very strong and defensive by the explicit language which shows us anger. Also it gives us a idea that even though he is strong and aggressive he cares about what happens to Lennie. This can relate to the link that he treats him like he is his

In the beginning of the novella, Lennie is portrayed as innocent and dependent on George. When Lennie had a mouse and George asked for it, Steinbeck describes Lennie’s reaction