'Of Mice & Men' - Key Characters

Lennie Small

Simple character with a powerful impact -- He is a big man, in contrast to his name

"Behind him(George)walked his opposite, a huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders; and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws. His arms did not swing at his sides, but hung loosely."

He loves to pet soft things, is blindly devoted to George and their vision of the farm, and possesses incredible physical strength

He earns the reader’s sympathy because of his utter helplessness in the face of the events that unfold. Lennie is totally defenseless. He cannot avoid the dangers presented by Curley, Curley’s wife, or the world at large

Doomed from the beginning

His innocence raises him to a standard of pure goodness that is more poetic a character whose innocence only seems to ensure his inevitable destruction

He is often described as a child or an animal - he drinks from the pool like a horse and his huge hands are described as paws.

George Milton

He is a small man, but has brains and a quick wit.

He is short-tempered but a loving and devoted friend, whose frequent protests against life with Lennie never weaken his commitment to protecting his friend. George’s first words, a stern warning to Lennie not to drink so much lest he get sick, set the tone of their relationship. George may be terse and impatient at times, but he never strays from his primary purpose of protecting Lennie.

He has been a good friend to Lennie, ever since he promised Lennie's Aunt Clara that he would care for him. He looks after all Lennie's affairs, such as carrying his work card, and tries to steer him out of potential trouble.

He needs Lennie as a friend, not only because Lennie's strength helps to get them both jobs, but so as not to be lonely. His threats to leave Lennie are not really serious. He is genuinely proud of Lennie.

He shares a dream with Lennie to own a piece of land and is prepared to work hard to build up the money needed to buy it.

"...with us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don't have to sit in no bar room blowin' in our jack 'jus because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us."

Crooks

Crooks’ room shows how Crooks is different from the other ranch hands. Much of the room is filled with boxes, bottles, harnesses, leather tools, and other accouterments of his job. It is a room for one man alone. But scattered about on the floor are his personal possessions, accumulated because, unlike the other workers, he stays in this job. He has gold-rimmed spectacles to read (reading, after all, is a solitary experience – “Sure you could play horseshoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain’t no good. A guy needs somebody—to be near him … . A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you … . I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick”

Physical disability sets him apart from the other workers ( makes him worry that he will soon wear out his usefulness on the ranch )-- his isolation is compounded by the fact that he is a black man. “S'pose you didn't have nobody. S'pose you couldn't go into the bunk house and play rummy 'cause you were black...A guy needs somebody-to be near him....I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick."

Curley’s wife uses race against Crooks to render him completely powerless. When she suggests that she could have him lynched, he is unable to mount any defence. 

"Well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.”  

He is bitter about his exclusion from the other men, Crooks feels grateful for Lennie’s company. Yet, as much as he craves companionship, he cannot help himself from lashing out at Lennie with unkind suggestions that George will leave Lennie.-- Crooks’s behavior exemplifies  the predatory nature of the ranch-hands’  world. The strong attack the weak but the weak will attack the weaker.

Crooks exhibits an insight that other characters lack. He is openly sceptical of Lennie's claim that he will soon own a piece of land, telling him that such dreams never come to fruition -- Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head.”

Crooks acts brusque not because of any dislike for others; rather, he uses it as a defence mechanism. 

Curley's Wife

Steinbeck describes Curley’s wife in terms of her appearance and the reactions of the ranch hands toward her. She has been alternately a “tart,” “jailbait,” and various other derogatory terms, used often by George. In the end she is seen as another victim of loneliness.

Although her purpose is rather simple in the novel’s opening pages—she is the “tramp,” “tart,” and “bitch” that threatens to destroy male happiness and longevity—her appearances later in the novel become more complex. When she confronts Lennie, Candy, and Crooks in the stable, she admits to feeling a kind of shameless dissatisfaction with her life. 

Her vulnerability at this moment and later—when she admits to Lennie her dream of becoming a movie star—makes her utterly human and much more interesting than the stereotypical vixen in fancy red shoes. However, it also reinforces the novel’s grim worldview. In her moment of greatest vulnerability, Curley’s wife seeks out even greater weaknesses in others, preying upon Lennie’s mental handicap, Candy’s debilitating age, and the color of Crooks’s skin in order to steel herself against harm.

Sympathetic treatment of Curley’s wife prior to her death – once she lies lifeless on the hay, Steinbeck writes that all the marks of an unhappy life have disappeared from her face, leaving her looking “pretty and simple . . . sweet and young.” After maligning women about their flirtatious natures; it is disturbing, then, that Steinbeck seems to subtly imply that the only way for a woman to redeem that nature and restore her lost innocence (?) is through death.

Candy

The old handyman, aging and left with only one hand as the result of an accident, worries that the boss will soon declare him useless and demand that he leave the ranch.

Life on the ranch—especially Candy’s dog, once an impressive sheep herder but now toothless, foul-smelling, and brittle with age—supports Candy’s fears. Past accomplishments and current emotional ties matter little, as Carson makes clear when he insists that Candy let him put the dog out of its misery. In such a world, Candy’s dog serves as a harsh reminder of the fate that awaits anyone who outlives his usefulness.

For a brief time, however, the dream of living out his days with George and Lennie on their dream farm distracts Candy from this harsh reality. He deems the few acres of land they describe worthy of his hard-earned life’s savings, which testifies to his desperate need to believe in a world kinder than the one in which he lives.

Like George, Candy clings to the idea of having the freedom to take up or set aside work as he chooses. So strong is his devotion to this idea that, even after he discovers that Lennie has killed Curley’s wife, he pleads for himself and George to go ahead and buy the farm as planned.