Lennie

Although exact dimensions are never given by the author, Lennie is to be conceived of in terms physically overwhelming. When the moving picture based on the novel was made, the actor chosen for the role was Lon Chaney, Jr., gifted with a huge body and vast experience in playing various monsters in a number of films. The audience's familiarity with Chaney as monster did no harm to his interpretation of the role of Lennie. There is something almost monstrous about the discrepancy between the immensely powerful, hulking body and the pathetic childishness of the mind. None of the characters in Of Mice and Men are presented in very complex psychological perspective, but Lennie, representing an extreme polarity, is capable of only a few attitudes. The main one, of course, consists of his dependence upon George. The reader tends to assume in the beginning of the novel that George's admonitions to Lennie to keep completely silent at the new ranch suggest an almost complete inability on Lennie's part to make any sense. But the situation is not that absolute. What does typify Lennie is a characteristic which he holds in common with children: a short attention span. He is able to converse with the stable hand, Crooks, for a while, but the discussion inevitably leads to a consideration of the one obsessive reference point to which the big man always returns, the hoped-for reality of a little ranch somewhere. He is able to converse, if not to communicate with Curley's wife, but the discussion there inevitably leads to the acting-out of his second obsession: the desire to feel and caress soft things. Thus, within the context of his dependence upon his companion, Lennie's life is primarily bounded on the one hand by an unrealizable dream, on the other by an ungovernable tactile compulsion. On the practical day-to-day level of manual labor, Lennie's strength is second to none; his strength and willingness to work are so immense - like his body - that Slim reacts to them almost as he would to forces of nature. In addition, Lennie's goodwill and "purity" of intention are never in question. His memory operates poorly in terms of his own experience, but he is able to remember - as George explosively points out to him-even such details as particular words and phrases when they emanate from George's lips. His bodily movements, no less than the processes of his memory, also sometimes take their cue from his companion's actions. Although he possesses an innate animal grace which allows him to creep quietly, he will sometimes go so far in the surrender of a personal coordination as to copy, for instance, the exact way in which George puts his arms around his knees in a sitting position.

George

The reader's general sense of George is an understanding of him as an ordinary man, extraordinarily driven into an extraordinary guardianship by the promptings of moral responsibility and a need for companionship which apparently can not or will not lead to more traditional remedies for loneliness. Whether there are more deep-lying and complex motivations in George cannot be definitely inferred from the information given in the novel. But the occasions which elicit from George an opinion about women suggest some of his attitudes. Whenever he talks about Curley's wife, he sees her not only as a potential great danger to Lennie, but in more general terms as a symbol of a predatory, unprincipled and dangerous sex. And when George speaks of the uses to which he could put his earnings in the absence of a responsibility for Lennie, he goes out of his way to point out that a relationship with a bought woman is more convenient and satisfactory than any other: the relationship is governed by the clear purpose of both partners; and once that purpose has been achieved, there is no more involvement. In fact there is that in George which may very well be strongly disinclined to any personal involvement. His relationship to Lennie, admittedly, is a close one, but more paternal than anything else, and certainly has no place for intellectual reciprocity.

Physically, George is characterized by features which are clearly defined, restless and observant eyes, strong small hands, thin arms and bony nose. As to his dealing with the other ranch hands, George is quite capable of sharing the simple camaraderie typical of life in the bunkhouse. He is cautious and to some degree suspicious of new situations; and he has a reasonable right to be. His guardianship is always met with surprise, suspiciousness or even amused contempt.

 Curley

As far as one can be specifically singled out, Curley is the villain of the piece, arrogant, a braggart, a bully and a coward. He is the intensification of the vices of his father, whose appearance makes clear the family pattern. Curley is manipulative and insecure, two traits which work along with each other to the detriment of any possible saving graces in his character. The more insecure Curley gets, the greater his need to handle, order, destroy in a constant search for self-confidence. And since it is a search based upon external reality and others' attitudes alone, it is doomed to failure. Conversely, the more Curley manipulates people, the greater his insecurity, because he is perceptive enough to observe the loathing in which he is held by everyone in the ranch, with the exception of his father. And thus, although unredeemed by any appearance of warmth or goodness, he is in his way a tragic figure. As Lennie plays out his tortured life between his dream and his compulsion, so Curley is doomed to a constant oscillation between the ravages of his low self-esteem and his need to control others. The reader may, with a certain reasonableness, assume that Curley's reasons for marrying might have included a certain affection; but even in this relationship Curley's temperament allowed him to act only in such a way as to provoke the girl's confidence to Lennie that her husband was "mean." But the degree to which the reader might conceivably take pity on Curley remains minimal in the apparent absence in the boss' son of any significant conflict between "good" and "bad" impulses.

 Curley's Wife

The wife is marked by the bad taste inherent in her choice of overly heavy make-up, blatantly decorative ostrich feathers, vulgarity in her stance. Also pertinent, however, is the pitiable loneliness which sends her walking all over the ranch, looking for something unfindable. The ranch hands look upon her with suspicion, and emphasize her greed and dangerous seductiveness. But what they are unable to glimpse is her authentic loneliness. This loneliness, in turn, derives its quality largely from her self-love, which is clearly manifest in her conversation with Lennie during the fatal meeting in the great barn. She is so wrapped up in her impossible fantasy of a career in "pitchers," her adolescent glamorizations of a desirable future, that she can not allow herself to understand the nature of the other person, or the nature of the conversation, in which nothing is communicated. She has in common with Curley a streak of real viciousness and cruelty. This streak is disclosed on several occasions. When she first starts to talk to Lennie in the barn, she talks with pleasure of the possibility that he might break her husband's other hand. But more incisively, because less justifiably motivated, she lashes out at Crooks, the Negro stable hand, when he objects to her trespassing on his room. Ironically, it is just about the only time that she draws upon a deeply held attitude of (white) society in a powerful and concentrated way. Her threats to him, however mean-spirited and nasty, are effectively delivered. But otherwise she hardly seems to have a sense of belonging to a significant, solid, real social unit. That she is never named in the course of the narrative is an implicit comment upon her position.

Slim

Slim is the "prince" of the ranch, a skilled workman, the moral arbiter of the bunkhouse, a grave, detached and judicious companion. His stride is graceful and his air benign. His social effectiveness and power from an exact counter to Curley's. Where the boss' son consistently attempts to enforce an acceptance of his power by crude and unsuccessful gambits, Slim is able to gain such an acceptance by not claiming anything. By being himself, clearly a figure of integrity and unclouded perceptions, Slim in his quiet way is accepted as an unvoted legislator in times of problems or questionings.

 Candy

Candy is an old ranch hand, the owner of a moth-eaten, blind, old smelly sheep dog whose destruction (by the implicit consent of the majority of the workers on the ranch) constitutes one of the leading symbols of doom and biological necessity in this novel. He acts as a "swamper," that is, a general clean-up man around the ranch. He usually carries a broom. He has been demoted to this position not because of incompetence, but because an accident-which cost him his right hand-has made him incapable of ordinary responsibilities. Nothing is known about his past. He is a lonely man willing to pledge all his savings to the purchase of George and Lennie's dream ranch. He is the one who discovers Curley's wife's body; and he is the one who communicates the discovery to everyone else. He is also the one who, because of his affliction and his age, is delegated to stay by the body at the end of the narrative - thus being saved from the necessity of joining the posse on its mission to destroy Lennie.

The Boss

The boss, Curley's father, the owner of the ranch, appears briefly at the beginning of the novel to meet George and Lennie when they report for work. He is not as gratuitously vindictive as his son, but the family resemblance is apparent, except that where Curley is slim, the father is short and stocky. (Both he and his son wear high-heeled boots to indicate to the world that they are not laboring men.) He finds it hard to accept the fact that George does the talking both for himself and Lennie and does not disguise his suspicions that George is trying to put something over on him. He accepts them as workers, but warns George that "I got my eye on you."

 Carlson

Carlson is one of the ranch hands, identified physically in the narrative by his "powerful" stomach. Although Slim is the man who gives final approval to the destruction of Candy's dog, it is Carlson who, by his untiring pursuit of the point, brings the issue to a head. There may very well be some underlying vindictiveness in Carlson to prompt him to the unceasing suggestions that the dog be killed. When Carlson is putting forth his reasons for the dog's being put away, he gestures toward various parts of the animal's anatomy with his foot, as if the dog were a thing. And near the end of the book, Carlson's immediate reaction to the discovery of the girl's body is to run to the bunkhouse in order to get out his Luger pistol, almost as if Lennie were an animal too, which must be destroyed. His stance toward the dog and his hurried run for the weapon make it quite understandable that Carlson, in the book-ending quotation, should not be able to perceive George's agony.

 Crooks

Crooks, the old Negro stable-hand who lives in the harness-room, lives an isolated life on the ranch, even more so than any of the other employees. Before Lennie's arrival at the ranch the only two men ever to visit him in his room were the boss and Slim. And he himself never went over to the bunkhouse. His physical self is a kind of analogue of his life; he has been bent and twisted and rejected by the alien white world; and his body is bent and twisted by an accident to his spine in the distant past. He can be cruel, as to Lennie, but is not so far gone that he will not react to warmth andkindliness with some generosity.

 Whit

Whit, a young laboring man with sloping shoulders and a heavy walk, appears only briefly, and primarily during a scene in which he shows Slim a letter of appreciation to a cowboy pulp magazine written by an ex-worker at the ranch. The episode served largely as a brief pause in the tense discussions about the fate of Candy's dog.