Characterization of Lennie and George (Of Mice and Men)
The first chapter in the novel is very important for understanding the whole environment and the persons. Here you are getting introduced to the two main characters Lennie, and George. They are both dressed in denim, farmhand attire so right in the beginning we can tell they work on a ranch.
Lennie is described as a huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes and wide sloping shoulders. Inside he is clumsy, unintelligent, and lack awareness of social conventions.
He is innocence and unawareness of his strength and because of that, he commits violent acts without knowing he is doing wrong. That’s also why Lennie is compared to a bear. John Steinbeck writes: “and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws”
A bear is potentially a very dangerous animal. That definitely matches with Lennie because he doesn’t realize how strong he is. He gets anxious in stressful situations, causing him to lose control. At the beginning of the novel, him and George are forced to flee from their previous job because, as we later find out, Lennie was accused of raping a girl. Another example of his uncontrollable behavior is that Lennie had a dead mouse in his pocket because he likes to pet soft things but doesn’t know his own strength and accidentally killed the mouse when he pets it too hard. “What you want of a dead mouse, anyways?” “I could pet it with my thumb while we walked along,” said Lennie. (page 6)
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