What is the theme and the plot "of mice and men"?

Answer 1

Of Mice and Men is a novella by John Steinbeck, first published in 1937, which tells the tragic story of George and Lennie, two displaced Anglo migrant farm workers in California during the Great Depression (1929-1939). The story is set on a farm a few miles from Soledad (Soledad is Spanish for Solitude) in the Salinas Valley.

Plot:

Lennie is a large, strong man with the mind of a child, and George is a smaller man with quick wit who cares for Lennie. Lennie's love of touching soft things results in an accusation of rape by a woman whose dress he felt in the town of Weed. A mob from the town vows to lynch Lennie, which forces George and Lennie to leave their current town and find new work at a ranch near Soledad, California. George and Lennie hope to escape the repetitive, wandering fate of most ranch workers by saving up enough money to buy a small farm of their own, and "live offa the fatta the lan'." Lennie is driven to this goal by the prospect of "tending the rabbits". However, this goal is only a dream until Candy, another worker on the farm, offers to contribute his savings for a place on the farm.

While subjected to the loneliness and mediocrity of the life they presently lead, George and Lennie's prospect of their own farm attracts yet another hopeful, Crooks, the "*****" stable buck. Despite their best efforts, however, the dream begins to collapse, completely falling apart when Lennie accidentally kills the wife of Curley, a worker and son of the ranch boss. After killing Curley's wife, Lennie escapes to the river where the story had begun, the place where George told him to go should he ever get into trouble (Note the circular ending: it suggests that the workers are trapped in the cycle for ever).

To spare Lennie from Curley's revenge, which would entail much pain on Lennie's part, George quickly kills Lennie with a Luger pistol, stolen from Carlson. He does this by coaxing Lennie with a description of the dream, and shoots him in the back of the head. Slim and George then go for a drink to settle George's nerves. The last line of the book is Carlson, the ranch worker who kills Candy's old dog in a fashion similar to Lennie's killing (which foreshadows his death) is talking to Curley saying, "Now what the hell do you suppose is eatin' them two guys?" showing that both characters never learned the value of compassion and friendship.

Answer 2

Read the book. If you have a brain at all, you will recognize it as a touching, fine story and not at all hard to read.

Obviously, you have made yet another wrong choice: this time for the Best Answer. You are going to be doomed to always wondering if you're ever going to find the Right Answer since you did not choose my obviously superior answer for you. You blew it.

Answer 3

3 good sites that cover lots of works by different authors, it includes, Themes, Character analysis, and explains every thing that you are ever going to need to answer literature questions.

http://sparknotes.com/literature

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/

http://www.reviewsofbooks.com

Type in the title of the book and navigate around until you find what you need.

Good luck

Answer 4

My god, I really disliked that book.