Of Mice and Men
Prompt #6 · Of Mice and Men
Prompt Type: Scene Analysis
In the scene where Lennie accidentally kills Curley's Wife while stroking her hair in the barn, Steinbeck depicts the inevitable collision between Lennie's innocence and the harsh world. Analyze how this moment serves as the climax that destroys all hope for the dream farm. Explain how it contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
Quote 1
“And she continued to struggle, and her eyes were wild with terror. He shook her then, and he was angry with her. "Don’t you go yellin’," he said, and he shook her; and her body flopped like a fish. And then she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck.”
Chapter 5
Argument
This quote captures the climactic moment of violence itself, using the simile 'flopped like a fish' to emphasize Lennie's inability to control his strength and the tragic inevitability of the collision between his innocent intentions and the fatal consequences, marking the precise instant when the dream farm becomes impossible.
Quote 2
"Look out, now, you’ll muss it." And then she cried angrily, "You stop it now, you’ll mess it all up." She jerked her head sideways, and Lennie’s fingers closed on her hair and hung on.
Chapter 5
Argument
This quote establishes the immediate trigger of the tragedy within the barn scene, showing how Curley's wife's innocent vanity and Lennie's compulsive need to touch soft things escalate into panic, demonstrating the function of this moment as the point where innocence transforms into catastrophe.
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
This quote from later in the barn scene reveals George's recognition that the dream was always illusory, serving to articulate how this climactic death destroys not just the practical possibility of the farm but exposes the dream's fundamental impossibility in a world where Lennie's nature cannot coexist with society's demands.
Quote 4
“And the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young.”
Chapter 5
Argument
This quote from the barn scene immediately following Curley's wife's death reveals the function of her transformation in death—the erasure of her 'meanness' and 'discontent' exposes how the harsh world corrupted her dreams just as it destroys Lennie's, reinforcing the scene's role as the climax where innocence is extinguished by reality's brutality.
Quote 5
“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
This quote from earlier in the novel establishes the broader context that the barn scene confirms—Crooks's cynical observation that 'never a God damn one of 'em ever gets' their dream farm serves as the thematic framework that the climactic death validates, showing how this moment functions as the inevitable collision between hope and the world's harsh truth.