Of Mice and Men- Lennie Character Analysis

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In the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Lennie Small is a large, young at heart man with a mental disorder. Although Lennie is among the principal characters in Of Mice and Men, he is perhaps the least dynamic. He undergoes no significant changes, development, or growth throughout the story and remains exactly as the reader encounters him in the opening pages. Simply put, he loves to pet soft things, is blindly devoted to George and their vision of the farm, possesses incredible physical strength and even obliviousness to how serious death is(causing much trouble throughout the story) Nearly every scene in which Lennie appears confirms these and only these characteristics. From the moment we learn why Lennie and George are on the road (Lennie’s dress-petting incident in Weed, mentioned on page 41), we realize that Lennie’s combination of small thinking and big body is bad news. Lennie doesn’t know his own strength, but he’s also unable to gauge other people’s (or animals’) weaknesses. We learn this major trait after Lennie smashed Curley’s hand in self defense after the smaller man had attacked Lennie for no good reason (pg. 63 and 64) Steinbeck gives the reader a sense of sympathy after Lennie begins to cry about how he didn’t mean to hurt Curley “I didn’t wanta” lennie cried, “I didn’t wanta hurt him.” (pg.64) Lennie is also best described as childlike; he embodies the best characteristics of a childish mentality – innocence, exuberance, and earnest love and trust – but he also embodies the worst – unchecked anger, irresponsibility, and an inability to connect his actions to their consequences. For example, Lennie loves to pet soft things like mice, puppies, velvet and as mentioned earlier, dresses. But because Lennie is so quick to get emotional, so unable to be rational, and so physically large it is difficult for the other ranchers to see his
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