Says ‘positively kills lice, roaches and other scourges.’ What the hell kind of bed you giving us, anyways. We don’t want no pants rabbits.
Chapter 2 · George Milton
Context
George has just thrown his blankets onto his assigned bunk and discovered a can of insecticide on the apple-box shelf. He directs his suspicion at Candy, who is responsible for the bunk house.
Analysis
George's first sustained speech is an act of consumer complaint—reading a label aloud, demanding accountability—which momentarily reverses the power dynamic established by his late arrival. The euphemism 'pants rabbits' for body lice does the cultural work of dialect humor while also confirming that infestation is so routine on the ranch it has acquired folk vocabulary; the slang both protests and concedes the condition it names.
How to Use in Essay
Support a thesis that George's combativeness is a performance of dignity calibrated for an audience that has none to spare—this moment of label-reading positions him as a literate, vigilant consumer in a system that treats him as interchangeable with the lice he refuses.