History Literature / OfMiceAndMen

One of the most challenged books of the 20th and 21st centuries and a frequent target of censors, who criticized it for bad language,[[note]]The far-right Reform Party of Canada attempted to have it banned in public schools in the city of Winnipeg in 2000; nothing came of the effort.[[/note]] "promoting euthanasia" and being "anti-business". However, it remains very popular and is a widely used UsefulNotes/SchoolStudyMedia. It has also had several film adaptations, including theatrical releases in 1939 and 1992 and made-for-TV versions in 1968 and 1981. The most famous adaptation is probably the 1939 film, which was directed by Lewis Milestone and starred Creator/BurgessMeredith as George and Creator/LonChaneyJr as Lennie, with a musical score by none other than Music/AaronCopland.

* FloweryInsults: Exasperated over Lennie's fixation with petting mice and killing them (as well as picking up dead mice to pet), George gets creative with his insults:

* BeigeProse: The writing in the book can get really overblown and haphazard at some points; many consider the film versons better for this reason.

One of the most challenged books of the 20th and 21st centuries and a frequent target of censors, who criticized it for bad language,[[note]]The far-right Reform Party of Canada attempted to have it banned in public schools in the city of Winnipeg in 2000; nothing came of the effort.[[/note]] "promoting euthanasia" and being "anti-business". However, it remains very popular and is a widely used SchoolStudyMedia. It has also had several film adaptations, including theatrical releases in 1939 and 1992 and made-for-TV versions in 1968 and 1981. The most famous adaptation is probably the 1939 film, which was directed by Lewis Milestone and starred Creator/BurgessMeredith as George and Creator/LonChaneyJr as Lennie, with a musical score by none other than Music/AaronCopland.

* OddNameOut: Slim is the only named worker at the ranch (apart, of course, from George and Lennie) who does not have a name that starts with C.

** Invoked earlier in the novel; George tells the ranch owner that Lennie was kicked in the head by a horse when he was a kid. However, it was a lie to explain Lennie's mental handicap.

* AmbiguousDisorder: The exact nature and name of Lennie's disability are unspecified. The important parts are that he's got the mental state of a child, has a fondness for soft texture, is very impressionable and he has strength beyond a regular man. Due to his child-like state, Lennie is unaware of what he's actually capable of and what damage he can do. Lennie has to rely on a carer (first his Aunt Clara and then George after she dies) to protect him from the outside world, as well as reign him in when he gets agitated or scared. This is justified because the story is set in the 1930s, where psychology wasn't a perfected field of work and where public knowledge of mental disabilities was bupkis.

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* NoodleIncident: Zigzagged. The film opens with an ActionPrologue involving George and Lennie fleeing from an angry mob, though we don't know why. However, it's eventually explained when George has a conversation with Slim; there was a pretty girl at the ranch they worked on in Weed who got too close to Lennie whilst wearing her new red dress. Lennie thought the dress was pretty and tried to touch it -- she screamed and, in his usual panic response, Lennie just held on tighter, until eventually she managed to rip free and ran off. Though unspoken, the obvious implication is that she thought Lennie was going to rape her and so George had to help Lennie escape before the mob lynched him.

* ChildhoodBrainDamage: George tells the ranch owner that Lennie was kicked in the head by a horse as a child to explain why he's mentally slow. Lennie has to ask George about it afterwards as he doesn't know whether it's true or not -- George then says it's not true.

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Oh sure, Lennie is dumb as a post and pretty gentle to boot, but Curley's crushed hand will testify that he is not someone you provoke.

* LethallyStupid: Lennie; because he's so dumb, he can't really keep track of how much force he's using, and because he's so strong, that means he can break a man's neck like a toothpick without meaning to.

* VagabondBuddies: George and Lennie are this, due to the time-period forcing people to generally go on the road to look for work and because Lennie's stupidity prevents them from holding down long-term work.

* AmbiguousDisorder: The exact nature and name of Lennie's disability are unspecified. The important parts are that he's got the mental state of a child, has a fondness for soft texture, is very impressionable and he has strength beyond a regular man. Due to his child-like state, Lennie is unaware of what he's actually capable of and what damage he can do. Lennie has to rely on a carer (first his Aunt Clara and then George after she dies) to protect him from the outside world, as well as reign him in when Lennie gets agitated or scared. This is justified because the story is set in the 1930s, where psychology wasn't a perfected field of work and where public knowledge of mental disabilities was bupkis.

* AmbiguousDisorder: The exact nature and name of Lennie's disability are unspecified. The important parts are that he's got the mental state of a child, has a fondness for soft texture, is very impressionable and he has strength beyond a regular man. Due to his child-like state, Lennie is unaware of what he's actually capable of and what damage he can do. Lennie has to rely on a carer (first his Aunt Clara and then George after she dies) to protect him from the outside world, as well as reign him in when Lennie gets agitated or scared. This is justified because the story is set in the 1930's, where psychology wasn't a perfected field of work and where public knowledge of mental disabilities was bupkis.

* YourCheatingHeart: Curley suspects the reason his wife's seldom around and difficult to find is because she's going around having sex with other men. She's at the very least flirting with other men, though if she actually does succeed in talking them into sex is unknown because it doesn't happen on-screen.

''Of Mice and Men'' is a 1937 novel, one of Creator/JohnSteinbeck's most famous, set during TheGreatDepression. It involves Lennie Small (a mentally-impaired GentleGiant) and George Milton, migrant workers who arrive on a California farm to work and hope to earn enough money to open a rabbit farm of their own, but ... things go pretty wrong.

* ICouldaBeenAContender: Curley's wife claims this during her MotiveRant to Lennie in chapter 5, claiming she could have gone away and become a star in Hollywood, but instead she's stuck out in the middle of nowhere as the bored and lonely TrophyWife of a strutting, arrogant rooster of a ranch-owner.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Despite George and Lennie's genuine and endearing friendship as well as a number of sympathetic characters, this book is set during the Great Depression so its pretty obvious its pretty bleak, depressing, and cynical.

* UnusualEuphemism : "Pants rabbits." Apparently crab lice or some other type of parasite, also referred to as "greybacks" in the same scene.

* ForgottenFallenFriend: Curley used his wife's death to get murderous revenge on Lennie for breaking his hand. Their marriage was lifeless and Curley didn't take too long to assume the role as a CrusadingWidower

* TooDumbToLive: Curley's wife. She's seen firsthand that Lennie is a simple-minded but powerful fool who was capable of ''crushing her husband's hand'', and that he has problems controlling his strength because he's dumb -- after all, he'd just killed his new puppy by accident when she came in. Yet she's still stupid enough to invite Lennie to start stroking her hair, and then panics when he won't stop. When he grabs her and tells her to stop screaming, she keeps on screaming, and he ends up accidentally breaking her neck in trying to make her stop.

* GentleGiant: Lennie is huge NiceGuy and loves cuddly animals and soft things. The problem is that because of his inability to control his strength, he frequently kills pets when cuddling them.

* SuddenlyVoiced: Free points in your essay for saying that the bit in the last chapter where Lennie visualizes his Aunt Clara telling him off is the first and only time we actually hear what the characters are thinking.

* AmbiguousDisorder: The exact nature and name of Lennie's disability are unspecified. The important parts are that he's got the mental state of a child, has a fondness for soft texture, is very impressionable and he has strength beyond a regular man. Due to his child-like state, Lennie is unaware of what he's actually capable of and what damage he can do. Lennie has to rely on a carer to protect him from the outside world, as well as, reign him in when Lennie gets agitated or scared. This is justified because the story is set in the 1930's, where psychology wasn't a perfected field of work.

* AssholeVictim: Curley gets his hand broken by Lennie after he tries to assert dominance over him and the bunkhouse. Everyone was clearly on Lennie's side since he had no interest or desire in fighting Curley, they were also more astounded by the act than sympathetic to Curley. Slim quickly blackmails Curley to lie about the source of his injury by threatening to tell everyone about how he broke his hand in a fight he started against a herculean, towering simpleton. Curley's wife had no sympathy for him either and reveled in finding out about the fight.
-->'''Slim''': It ain't your fault Lennie, this punk had it coming to him.

* AssholeVictim: Curley gets his hand broken by Lennie after he tries to assert dominance over him and the bunkhouse. Everyone was clearly on Lennie's side since Lennie had no interest or desire in fighting Curley. Slim quickly blackmails Curley to lie about the source of his injury by threatening to tell everyone about how he broke his hand in a fight he started against a herculean, towering simpleton. Curley's wife had no sympathy for him either.