—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 · George Milton
Context
Responding indirectly to Candy's question, George confesses that he never truly believed in the dream of the farm. He attributes its persistence to Lennie's pleasure in hearing about it.
Analysis
The triple cognitive verb 'I knowed...I knowed...got to thinking' tracks the precise epistemological erosion: certain non-belief contaminated by repeated performance into provisional belief. The reflexive construction 'I got to thinking maybe we would' captures the involuntary contagion of hope through speech—George did not choose to start believing; the repetition of the dream pulled him toward it. This is a confession of how fiction colonizes its narrator, and it implicates the act of storytelling itself.
How to Use in Essay
Support a thesis that the novella offers a sustained meditation on the dangers and necessities of consoling fictions—George's admission that he 'got to thinking maybe we would' demonstrates how stories told to others eventually persuade their tellers, with catastrophic consequences.