Who is john steinbeck of mice and men

Leon, Indiana. Subjects American Literature. Cite this set. Chicago citation style Susan Ketcham. Accessed November 12, Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.

An excerpt from a critical study entitled The Novels of John Steinbeck , An oil-on-canvas painting entitled Valley Farms by Ross Dickinson, Kirby, Two wandering day laborers traveling together; from work to work, from trouble to trouble. One small and cunning; the other giant, and retarded. Working from city to city, from field to field, but always protecting each other.

A dream pushes them forward, work the fields until one day have enough to purchase a small farm of their own. A place where Geo Sometimes people can do awful things, sometimes they mean it, and sometimes they don't.

A place where George can work the land, and Lennie tend the rabbits. But there are difficulties, Lennie in his brutish innocence tends to get himself into serious problems, and more often that not, both. A short but very memorable read from the famed pulitzer winner John Steinbeck. A little p novella about the unbreakable bonds of friendship, and the cruelties of a sometimes hostile rural world. John Steinbeck creates two immortal characters, but the movie gives them a real palpable soul.

Mainly due to the exceptional performance of John Malkovich, and a very remarkable Gary Sinise. Brilliant book-to-film adaptation. En esta novela conocemos la historia de "George" y "Lennie". Dos jornaleros errantes viajando juntos; de trabajo en trabajo, de problema en problema.

Un lugar donde George pueda trabajar la tierra, y Lennie cuidar de los conejos. Pero existen dificultades, Lennie en su bruta inocencia tiende a meterse en serios aprietos Una lectura corta pero muy memorable del afamado ganador del Pulitzer John Steinbeck.

View all 12 comments. It's the way Steinbeck describes things that gets me. On one side of the little room there was a square four-paned window, and on the other, a narrow plank door leading into the barn. Crooks' bunk was a long box filled with straw, on which his blankets were flung. On the wall by the window there were pegs on which hung broken harness in process of being mended; strips of new leath It's the way Steinbeck describes things that gets me.

On the wall by the window there were pegs on which hung broken harness in process of being mended; strips of new leather; and under the window itself a little bench for leather-working tools, curved knives and needles and balls of linen thread, and a small hand riveter.

On pegs were also pieces of harness, a split collar with the horsehair stuffing sticking out, a broken hame, and a trace chain with its leather covering split. Crooks had his apple box over his bunk, and in it a range of medicine bottles, both for himself and for the horses. There were cans of saddle soap and a drippy can of tar with its paint brush sticking over the edge. And scattered about the floor were a number of personal possessions; for, being alone, Crooks could leave his things about, ad being a stable buck and a cripple, he was more permanent than the other men, and he had accumulated more possessions than he could carry on his back.

Steinbeck succeeds because the characters he paints in your head are exact. The first time I saw the movie that was made out of this story, it was just as I had envisioned it. Though the story great itself, the reason I will come back to this book is for the little things, the very things that have made me love Steinbeck so much.

I first read Of Mice And Men my sophomore year of high school, when it was a required reading in Mrs. Beeler's class. I recall disliking almost all required school readings up to this point though admittedly I had skipped out on the summer reading project of "The Grapes Of Wrath". When this book was assigned, I knew it was different. I blew through it, reading it in a day or two, even though I wasn't supposed to. For once there was a school book that I enjoyed.

And all the credit in the world to my teacher, who chose other good books the rest of the year. So it's been years since I've read this, and now, reading it for the second time, it's just as memorable as I remember. The story sticks with you, the imagery sticks. The characters are among Steinbeck's best, painted in such a crystal clear vision of the time.

It's a near perfect short story, and one that I will surely revisit throughout my life. View all 8 comments. I am pretty sure it was required reading in high school and I know I enjoyed it the first time around.

And, as luck would have it, I enjoyed it this time as well. I can sum it up by saying that Steinbeck can write and that is an understatement! I have loved every book I have read by him. The descriptions are vivid, the characters are richly developed, and stories are powerful. Of Mice and Men is no exception.

In fact, if you have been wanting to try Steinbeck but find the size of Grapes of Wrath or East of Eden daunting, this is a great place to start. George is the gruff and scrappy brains of the operation while Lenny is a mentally challenged giant who does not know or understand his own strength.

Their relationship is an odd one but kind of beautiful. Without it, this story would just not be the same. Also, this book has one of the most view spoiler [tragic and gut-wrenching finales in literature hide spoiler ] This is a classic that I feel everyone should read. And, I feel like Steinbeck is an author that everyone should read at least once.

The writing is just too amazing to miss out on and it is so awesome how consistently amazing Steinbeck was. A book should cheer you up, right? Got any good ideas? One I haven't read? How about Steinbeck? How depressing could it be? Nah, of course not. Of Mice and Men is one of those books that pretty much everyone has read.

I once saw an "Hey Tim, old buddy… I hear you've been depressed recently. I once saw an article that said it was one of the most commonly read books in High School classes in America. Somehow it is another one of those classics that I managed to never have assigned to me in both High School or College and I majored in English.

Well, I've read it now. My thoughts? Well, it's a wonderfully well told story, frequently feeling more like a play than a novel, but I mean that as a compliment as it makes for a fast paced conversational tone. It's depressing as all hell mind you, but wonderfully told. Did I enjoy reading it? No, no I sure as hell did not. I mean the writing is well done, Steinbeck created one of the best literary pairs ever written and managed to have the most perfect moment of foreshadowing I've ever read in the form of a dog, so animal lovers beware!

I'm very glad I read it and genuinely liked the book. Enjoyment though? No, no and no. Do I have anything else to add? Not really. It's a short review, because there's really not much I can say that hasn't already been said.

I could address how Curley's wife is annoyingly only called Curley's wife despite being a main character, and the treatment she's given in the book… but I think this is entirely because Steinbeck is showing her only from the point of view of his characters. This is further reinforced by an article I saw in which it discussed how he wrote to Claire Luce, the actress who originated the role on stage saying the following about the character: "She is a nice, kind girl and not a floozy.

No man has ever considered her as anything except a girl to try to make As to her actual sex life — she has had none except with Curley and there has probably been no consummation there since Curley would not consider her gratification and would probably be suspicious if she had any. Will I read more Steinbeck in the future? I apparently like sliding down the rain slick precipice of despair, so why the hell not? View all 19 comments. Oct 13, Samra Yusuf rated it really liked it Shelves: nobel-writers.

This loneliness is different from being 'alone': You can be lonely even surrounded by people. This is the story of unloved and alone, of George Milton and Lennie Small, the story of two antithetic coming together in bond only death dared disrupt. The story of the dream which dwelt all just in head and inspired them to work from place to place in the wake of depression years in America. View all 29 comments.

What more can I possibly add to a discussion of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men without drawing a high school English teacher's salary? I read it in under forty-eight hours. Both were dressed in denim trousers and in denim coats with brass buttons. Both wore black, shapeless hats and both carried tight blanket rolls slung over their shoulders. The first man was small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp, strong features.

Every part of him was defined: small, strong hands, slender arms, a thin and bony nose. Behind him walked his opposite, a huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders; and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws. His arms did not swing at his sides, but hung loosely. Lennie Small is the child in a hulk's body. Walking ten miles to a barley ranch south of Soledad after a bus driver with a grudge drops them off on the highway far short of their destination, Lennie is fascinated by petting mice or rabbits or anything with a nice texture.

Lennie has never laid a hand on George, enamored by the tales his traveling partner tells of the land they'll settle someday. When the men finally arrive for work, George does the talking. An' I ain't so bright neither, or I wouldn't be buckin' barley for my fifty and found. If I was bright, if I was even a little bit smart, I'd have my own little place, an' I'd be bringin' in my own crops, 'stead of doin' all the work and not getting what comes up outta the ground.

He wanted to talk. Slim neither encouraged nor discouraged him. He just sat back quiet and receptive. Stephen King's dialogue can be tin, while Elmore Leonard's attentiveness when it comes to prose is short spanned to say the least, but Steinbeck's descriptions and dialogue achieve a purity that captivates me. It's like the difference between drinking water from a garden hose that's been drying in the sun with who knows what crawling inside it and one day, someone hands you a bottle of Perrier.

Then he works that knowledge into his books and passes it along to the reader. I find myself able to relate to Steinbeck more than I can the majority of contemporary authors, who often seem to have never been around humans who dreamed, drank, lusted, got into fights or trouble with the law, fell out with family members or worried about where their next meal might come from. Crooks said gently, "Maybe you can see now. You got George. You know he's goin' to come back.

S'pose you didn't have nobody. S'pose you couldn't go into the bunkhouse and play rummy 'cause you was black. How'd you like that? S'pose you had to sit out here an' read books. Sure you could play horseshoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody--to be near him. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long as he's with you.

I tell ya," he cried, "I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick. It's short, it's about men and work and figuring out a better future and loyalty and how things don't always work out the way you dream they will.

Yet the writing takes me away to another place. I couldn't last a day bucking barley or bucking a sack of anything, but as Steinbeck knows well, we all yearn to be on the open road, traveling, camping out on a river and maybe eating beans just because we felt like it. Reading the novel, I heard Sinise's voice as George.

References to Steinbeck's novel have been dropped by a ton of cartoon series, perhaps as much a tribute to Jones as to Steinbeck, but the homage that stands out for me are the characters of Pinky and the Brain on Animaniacs.

View all 47 comments. Jan 05, Brina rated it really liked it Shelves: classics , novella. Over the past year, I have rediscovered John Steinbeck as a master American story teller. Having read Cannery Row and its follow up Sweet Thursday, I realized what a prolific author Steinbeck was and hope to continue my reading with a number of his novels this year.

One novella I did read while in school but have a fuzzy memory of is Of Mice and Men. With a square on this year's classic bingo board being read a group read that you haven't read yet, I decided that it was as good a time as any to Over the past year, I have rediscovered John Steinbeck as a master American story teller. With a square on this year's classic bingo board being read a group read that you haven't read yet, I decided that it was as good a time as any to revisit this work of Steinbeck's through adult eyes.

Near the Salinas River and Soledad, California, two nomadic farm hands named George and Lennie stake out their existence in life. George dreams of having his own farm house and acreage but it is during the depression and he has little money saved. He also promised Aunt Clara, really a family friend, that he would take care of her nephew Lennie, a dimwitted yet strong man.

Steinbeck portrays George as an average man during his era who attempts to find work in order to make ends meet, yet he has the added burden of caring for and providing for Lennie's well being. Had this been written in contemporary times, Lennie would have been characterized as developmentally disabled or autistic, yet in the s society could not pinpoint what ailed people like Lennie. They were dismissed as dimwitted with little future, preventing those caring for them in having many prospects for bettering themselves either.

The reader finds out that Lennie loves animals although with his limited mental capacity he does not have success in caring for them, killing one mouse, rabbit, or puppy after another. Steinbeck alludes to the fact that the reason that George and Lennie are in between jobs is because Lennie had felt a woman's dress meaning no harm, yet the act alarmed other members of their work team, forcing the duo to flee the premises. As the pair approaches yet another farm, George makes Lennie promise to keep his mouth shut, to do whatever George asks him to, and to please stay out of trouble.

Despite the best of intentions, with Lennie's condition being what it is, he does not always remember to do what George asks of him, putting both of their futures in jeopardy. As in past jobs, George quickly becomes friendly with the rest of the work crew, attempting to distance himself from Lennie.

Lennie ends up attempting a friendship with the rest of the outcasts on the farm, including a Negro horseshoe hand, yet even this relationship ends in tragedy. When Lennie's actions result in tragic proportions, George must choose between protecting Lennie and thinking of himself and his own future, with the denouement coming to a upsetting climax. I could not help but thinking that if George and Lennie lived today with society's awareness of degrees of developmental delays, that both George and Lennie would have enjoyed a happier existence.

The burden of caring for Lennie would not have been placed on George, and Lennie himself would have been taught the rudimentary aspects of self care and perhaps even been placed in a basic job. Yet, placing George and Lennie in modern times is hearsay and their relationship ended in tragedy with Steinbeck placing George in a precarious situation which he would have to dwell upon for the rest of his life.

In reading Steinbeck I have seen how he has done a masterful job in painting his characters as archetypes of the era in which they lived, usually depression era California.

George and Lennie are two men looking to better themselves in a decade when one had little to be happy about. While rereading this tragic novella, I could not help but think if like other books I read for school if this is above most teenagers heads. Perhaps, teachers could discuss George and Lennie's relationship and where Lennie would be if he lived today, much as I did while reading.

Yet, like other books I read at the time, Of Mice and Men gains a deeper appreciation while reading it through adult eyes. Another bingo square checked off, yet definitely not the last Steinbeck novel I will devour this year. View all 26 comments. Oct 06, Kevin Ansbro rated it it was amazing Shelves: classic-literature , favourites , human-emotions , immorality , short-stories , morality , racism , human-cruelty , gritty-realism.

A book I'd read an awfully long time ago, when pocket calculators were still the latest thing. Such an iconic staple of American literature, wherein George and Lennie, migrant labourers in the Cali dustbowl, form an unlikely bond in a tale of brutality and tenderness. Typical of Steinbeck, his 'no-fucking-about' narrative fast-tracks his examination of human morality, culminating in a story that has since been immortalised on film and stage.

Steinbeck strived for gritty realism and wrote about a ti A book I'd read an awfully long time ago, when pocket calculators were still the latest thing. Steinbeck strived for gritty realism and wrote about a time and a place, with all of its triumphs and evils.

Hidden messages shadow the narrative, chiefly one of morality. He depicted an America that existed, not the one that he would have liked. View all 50 comments. Sep 13, Maureen rated it really liked it. Touching and beautifully written. Kimber Silver Lovely review, Maureen! I'm glad you enjoyed this one! Maureen Kimber wrote: "Lovely review, Maureen! Kimber wrote: "Lovely review, Maureen! Of Mice and Men is a tale about the ultimate kindness - it is hard to talk about kindness without turning sentimental but John Steinbeck was the one who really could.

His ear heard more than what was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought. Simple men of this cruel world live in their own dreamlands and they dream of rainbows.

View all 3 comments. A kind of modern fairy tale of a little intelligent man and a big powerful giant, however shall we say quite dumb intellectually challenged.

George finds that Lennie, who loves petting soft things but often accidentally kills them, has been carrying and stroking a dead mouse. George angrily throws it away, fearing that Lennie might catch a disease from the dead animal. George complains loudly that his life would be easier without having to care for Lennie, but the reader senses that their friendship and devotion is mutual. George ends the night by treating Lennie to the story he often tells him about what life will be like in such an idyllic place.

The next day, the men report to the nearby ranch. He lies, explaining that they travel together because they are cousins and that a horse kicked Lennie in the head when he was a child. They are hired. Curley is newly married, possessive of his flirtatious wife, and full of jealous suspicion. Soon, the ranch-hands return from the fields for lunch, and George and Lennie meet Slim, the skilled mule driver who wields great authority on the ranch.

Slim comments on the rarity of friendship like that between George and Lennie. The next day, George confides in Slim that he and Lennie are not cousins, but have been friends since childhood. He tells how Lennie has often gotten them into trouble.

Slim agrees to give Lennie one of his puppies, and Carlson continues to badger Candy to kill his old dog. When Slim agrees with Carlson, saying that death would be a welcome relief to the suffering animal, Candy gives in.

Carlson, before leading the dog outside, promises to do the job painlessly. Slim goes to the barn to do some work, and Curley, who is maniacally searching for his wife, heads to the barn to accost Slim.

The three make a pact to let no one else know of their plan.