Notesale: Turn your study into money

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Allen/Hepner
OMM

“The chief thing that makes readers read a novel or short story is the characters
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Many
readers enjoy reading novels which feature characters they can relate to or who have similar experiences and emotional responses
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Authors use many techniques to portray nuanced, realistic and sophisticated characters in their prose fiction, including various types
of descriptive imagery, narrative structure and a perspective which captures the voice of the characters
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Through the use of repeated animal imagery,
symbols, and a character foil, Steinbeck’s portrayal of his characters presents a corrupted society and addresses the theme that friendship is
impossible
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Steinbeck repeatedly characterizes Lennie as an innocent victim of the corrupt
society in which he lives by using animal imagery, presenting him as a lumbering, naïve animal, first likening him to a bear (19), then to a horse
(20) and a terrier (26)
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Like an animal,
Lennie reacts to situations based on instinct and his fear takes over, hindering him from knowing what to do
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By portraying Lennie as a lumbering beast who responds instinctively in dangerous
situations, Steinbeck highlights the human corruption of their society and also the unusual nature of George and Lennie’s friendship
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Although George and Lennie are friends,
Steinbeck frequently portrays George playing Solitaire in the bunkhouse, symbolizing his isolation within the individualized society he is trying
to navigate
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Ultimately, although both characters face realistic challenges together, their friendship, like
any friendship in this mercilessly corrupt society, cannot survive and George must kill Lennie for his own protection
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Throughout the novel, Curley’s wife is an anonymous, symbolic figure and in fact she is never given a name
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Steinbeck further emphasizes her anonymity
and sexually promiscuous behavior with his first presentation of her when she cuts off the light shining into the bunkhouse
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Her vivid description and repeated red coloring, from her “full, rouged lips” to her red fingernails, red mules
and the “red ostrich feathers” which adorn them signal danger to George and Lennie and link her with the girl in Weed furthering the
foreshadowing (53)
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Steinbeck uses contrast and hyperbole to present Slim as an unrealistically ideal character, who acts as a foil to the coarse, friendless
characters who work at the ranch
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Slim has an “ageless” face and his ears “hear more than was said
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” Slim is even capable of seemingly impossible tasks, as he “smooth[es] out his crushed hat” (56)
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Steinbeck uses these specific contrasts to
emphasize Slim’s role as a foil to the other characters in this unforgiving world
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Slim is also the only character who is able to
understand the tragedy of the conclusion and the ultimate impossibility of George and Lennie’s friendship, as he discretely offers George the
comfort and reassurance he needs in the cruel, individual world
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Steinbeck’s characters are all trying to achieve something better in their lives,
yet are unable to successfully realize their dreams because of the nature of the individualized world in which they live
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We got
each other, that’s what’” 145), cannot survive the brutally competitive world
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Steinbeck’s bleak novel suggests that men can dream of a better future, but if they are confined to a
corrupt society they cannot be successful

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