Friday, August 13, 2021

Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men is a short book written about itinerant farm workers. Lennie and George travel together. George is the "brains". Lenny is not quite all there mentally, but he is big and strong. He is attracted to soft things. Unfortunately, he has a bad habit of accidentally killing soft animals that he touches. This gets worse when he accidentally strangles a woman. He retreats to his known hiding place when he is chased by a mob. George  later puts him out of his misery.

It is interesting to read about California agriculture from over 80 years ago. Has it always been a primarily itinerant workforce? The workers here were replace by Okies and later Mexican farmworkers. Ironic that it went through a few loops before getting back to the workers that were some of the earlier ones. I also wonder about the backstory of George and Lennie. They both dream of their own plot of land, yet find it out of reach. George is dedicated to Lennie, yet struggles with his burden. Was he really longing for the day to get rid of him? Or was it something he was doing out of sympathy?

No comments:

Post a Comment