Of Mice and Men
Prompt #26 · Of Mice and Men
Prompt Type: Theme + Device
Steinbeck structures the novel with deliberate parallelism, including repeated scenes, echoed dialogue, and mirrored situations. Analyze how this technique of parallelism reinforces the novel's themes of inevitability and the cyclical nature of dreams and disappointment. Explain how it contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
Quote 1
“I seen hunderds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads. Hunderds of them. They come, an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn one of ’em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ’em ever gets it.”
Chapter 4
Argument
Crooks's observation employs parallelism through the repeated pattern of men arriving 'with their bindles on their back an' that same damn thing in their heads,' creating a cyclical structure that reinforces the theme of inevitability—the endless repetition of identical dreams followed by identical failures demonstrates how the cycle itself becomes the tragedy.
Quote 2
"Because I got you an’—" "An’ I got you. We got each other, that’s what, that gives a hoot in hell about us," Lennie cried in triumph.
Chapter 6
Argument
This echoed dialogue from the novel's final scene mirrors Lennie's earlier declaration (#21), using exact parallelism ('I got you an'—' / 'An' I got you') to demonstrate how repeated language creates tragic irony—the same words that once signified hope now underscore the dream's collapse at the moment of George's ultimate betrayal.
Quote 3
“—I think I knowed from the very first. I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would.”
Chapter 5
Argument
George's confession uses parallelism through the repeated 'I think I knowed' construction to reveal the self-deceptive cycle at the dream's core—the structural repetition of the phrase mirrors how he repeatedly told the story despite knowing its impossibility, making the telling itself a cyclical ritual of false hope.
Quote 4
“But not us! An’ why? Because … because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that’s why.”
Chapter 1
Argument
This early declaration uses anaphora and parallelism ('I got you' / 'you got me') to establish the reciprocal dream structure that will be tragically echoed in the novel's final scene, demonstrating how Steinbeck's repeated linguistic patterns create a cyclical framework where the same words mark both hope's beginning and its inevitable end.
Quote 5
“Guys like us got no fambly. They make a little stake an’ then they blow it in. They ain’t got nobody in the worl’ that gives a hoot in hell about ’em—”
Chapter 6
Argument
George's near-verbatim repetition of his earlier description of itinerant workers ('Guys like us got no fambly' / 'They ain't got nobody') in the novel's final moments employs structural parallelism to close the narrative circle—the identical phrasing at beginning and end reinforces the theme of cyclical inevitability, as George returns to the very isolation he sought to escape.