On the sandy bank under the trees the leaves lie deep and so crisp that a lizard makes a great skittering if he runs among them.
Chapter 1 · Narrator
Context
Part of the opening tableau, this sentence describes the riverbank ecosystem before any human presence registers in the narrative.
Analysis
The hypothetical conditional 'if he runs among them' invites the reader into a noticing posture, calibrating attention to a scale at which a lizard's footfall becomes audible—an acoustic framing that will be ruptured pages later by 'the sound of footsteps on crisp sycamore leaves' as George and Lennie approach. The auditory imagery thus establishes a baseline silence against which all subsequent human intrusion will be measured, and primes readers to register the men as disturbances of equilibrium.
How to Use in Essay
Support a thesis that Steinbeck's cinematic ear—not merely his eye—organizes the novella's moral economy; this sentence establishes the soundscape that human presence repeatedly violates, with the climactic pool scene returning to the same auditory frame.