Of Mice and Men Theme

This story has reminded me a lot of the movie Chronicle. The movie is about three boys who acquire superpowers through unknown means. Eventually one of the boys, Andrews, power goes out of control and he ends up accidently killing another of the boys, Steve. This is similar to what happens to Lennie when he accidently kills Curley's Wife. Niether Andrew or Lennie meant what they did, they just couldn't control their strength. At the end of Chronicle Andrews powers start to go out of control, he loses his mind, and starts killing people. The third boy, Matt, has to kill Andrew in the end to stop his powers from going even more out of control and killing more people. This is reminded me a lot of the end of "Of Mice and Men" when George has to kill Lennie. Both Matt and George knew that they had to kill their friend for their own good.

I can see that "Of Mice and Men" is related to the poem "To A Mouse". They are both great examples of plans going wrong, and the plans in both of the stories are also similar. In the poem, the mouse loses its house that it had built on a farm and by the end of "Of Mice and Men" George and Lennie have lost their dream of owning a farm together. I can see why John Steinbeck decided to call this story "Of Mice and Men," though I doubt people would understand the title of the book if they haven't read "To A Mouse".

I was definetely surprised when George killed Lennie, but I can understand why he did it. He knew that if Curley and the other guys caught him that they wouldn't be as merciful towards him as George was. A different decision that George could have made would be to try to talk to Curley and the rest of the guys and try to talk them out of killing Lennie. Convincing Curley to not kill Lennie would have been very difficult though, but maybe with Slims help George could have done it. A second decision that George could have made would have been to run off with Lennie. I think it was possible for them to do this. They could have hid in some bushes and waited fir the guys to pass them and then run off to another farm.

Besides the theme of plans failing, another message that John Steinbeck is trying to say is that people always need friends and companions. When Lennie goes into Crooks room and Crooks starts asking Lennie what he would do if George never came back. Crooks says " 'A guy goes nuts if he ain't got anybody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya,' he cried, 'I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick." Steinbeck is trying to say that we, as humans, need and want to be around others. This is also shown with how Candy becomes so interested in their plan. After losing his dog he is looking for a new kind of companionship. Even Crooks, after Candy explains George and Lennies plan to him, wants to join them.