Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck (1937)
“A lean, brutal masterpiece about two broke men and one impossible dream — and what happens when the world is designed to crush people like them.”
Short Summary
George Milton and Lennie Small are Depression-era migrant workers who drift from ranch to ranch, George small and sharp, Lennie enormous and intellectually disabled. They share a dream: a small farm of their own, rabbits, independence. At a ranch in the Salinas Valley, that dream briefly expands to include other outcasts — old Candy, crippled Crooks, lonely Curley's wife. Then Lennie accidentally kills Curley's wife, and George shoots his best friend in the back of the head to spare him a worse death. The dream dies. The ranch goes on.
Detailed Summary
George Milton and Lennie Small travel together through California's Salinas Valley looking for work. George is small, quick, and pragmatic; Lennie is massive, gentle, and intellectually disabled, unable to control his own strength. George has been looking after Lennie since Lennie's Aunt Clara died,...