Of Mice and Men - Understanding The main Characters

Characters

Inorder of introduction into the novel.

George Milton

• Is the leader out of himself and Lennie,He is very dominent of the two and takes control.
• George takes responsibility for Lennie ,as if he were a child. For example he takes both work tickects as he knows Lennie is unable to be trusted with looking after his own.He promised Lennie's "Aunt Clara" that he would take care of him.
• Lennie looks up to and respects George. Lennie "Imitates George", when they first arrive at the Salinas River in the first chapter of the novel.
• Out of the pair, George is the clever one. He calculating and thinks ahead for future events that he expects will happen "if you ...get in trouble...come right here" to the Salinas River.
• George is resentful of Lennie for holding him back with getting on with his life "if i was alone i could live so easy", although he needs Lennie for company and reasurance of his authority, he does feel that in many ways he'd be better of without him, but looks after him out of guilt over his treatement of Lennie and the promise to "Aunt Clara".

Lennie Small

• Lennie is very childlike in his thinking, as he doesn't understand his own emotions, and is very selfish in getting what he would like, rather than putting his companion first. "I like ketchup with my beans", Lennie knows that George doesn't have ketchup but still insists ,like having a tantrum that he wants ketchup.
• However, not all of Lennie's characteristics are unthought out, he can manipulate George into feeling sorry for him , and he can get what he wants by doing so. "'I could go off in the hills there' Lennie spoke craftily",He knows how to make George feel guilty.

Candy ("the ol' Swamper")

• Candy tells us his thoughts and feeling on other characters that are living and working on the ranch.However we need to be careful that we do not believe all he says, as some of his beliefs may just be opinion, not necessarily truthful.
• Candy has a dog called Lou-lou, whish is used as a metaphor in the novel ,that when you get too…