All the time he coulda had such a good time if it wasn’t for you. He woulda took his pay an’ raised hell in a whore house, and he coulda set in a pool room an’ played snooker. But he got to take care of you.
Chapter 6 · Aunt Clara
Context
Aunt Clara, still hallucinated, escalates her accusation by cataloguing the pleasures George has had to forgo because of his responsibility for Lennie.
Analysis
The conditional perfect tense ('coulda had,' 'woulda took,' 'coulda set') constructs an entire unlived life for George in counterfactual syntax, and the juxtaposition of carnal and recreational pleasures ('whore house,' 'pool room,' 'snooker') against the burden of caretaking renders Lennie's existence as the negation of an ordinary bachelor freedom. That this analysis emerges from Lennie's own brain means Lennie has been listening more carefully to George's earlier complaints than George ever realized.
How to Use in Essay
Support a thesis that Steinbeck uses free indirect discourse via hallucination to reveal Lennie's painful awareness of being a burden—this passage internalizes George's Chapter 1 grievances and proves Lennie understood them all along, complicating the dynamic of their friendship.