“He can do anything you tell him,” said George. “He’s a good skinner. He can rassel grain bags, drive a cultivator. He can do anything. Just give him a try.”
Chapter 2 · George Milton
Context
Faced with the boss's direct question, Lennie freezes, and George rushes in to answer on his behalf, listing Lennie's skills before the boss can dismiss them.
Analysis
The anaphora 'He can... He can... He can do anything' accelerates into hyperbole that the listener is meant to discount even as it persuades—George is selling, not describing. The final 'Just give him a try' shifts register from assertion to plea, exposing the asymmetry of the negotiation: George offers proof, the boss owes nothing. The triple repetition of the modal 'can' insists on capacity precisely because capacity is the only currency Lennie possesses.
How to Use in Essay
Support a thesis that George's protective speech is structurally indistinguishable from a livestock auctioneer's pitch—this passage suggests that within the migrant labor economy, advocacy for the vulnerable must adopt the syntax of commodity description.