Friendships
•What is the effect of friendships on the
other people in the novel? Why?
• What are the positive and negative
effects of friendship in Steinbeck's world?
• How does the context to the novel link
with this theme?
•What point do you think Steinbeck is
trying to make by including this theme?
The swearing in this is only
quotations from the book!!!!!!
By Liam Marillier &
Luke Kitteridge
George and Lennie: Their friendship is like a father and son
relationship as George is always looking out for Lennie and
telling him what is right and wrong. Whenever Lennie gets
into trouble George has to get him out of it and because
Lennie is always getting into trouble they are always running
away and cannot settle down.
“In a panic, Lennie looked at George for help.” This shows
that Lennie is almost looking for instructions before acting as
if George is his father: “Whatever we ain’t got, that’s what you
want.”
“Look George look what I did.” Lennie is trying to impress
George as if he is his son.
Candy and his dog: This is another friendship but in this case
it isn’t two humans because Candy is an outcast so he
doesn’t have any time to spend with the other men when
working. Even though they have this friendship, Candy is still
very lonely as he can’t talk to his dog and play cards with him
like with a human. Candy loves his dog and the two of them
have been together for a very long time: it is a lasting
friendship: “you wouldn’t think it to look at him now, but he
was the best damn sheep dog I ever seen”.
Crooks and his horses: American society would have forced
Crooks to not have any friends as he is black and therefore
being with the horses constantly and taking care of them
would be the closest thing to a friend he has.
The main character that is affected in the book by these
friendships is Crooks as he is the loneliest person and
isn't even allowed to talk to the other men as he is black.
This was because it was a very racist time and they would
treat him as if he was a slave: “they let the nigger come in
that night. Little skinner name of Smitty took after the
nigger.”
Crooks would therefore be very jealous of George and
Lennie’s friendship, which may be why he is horrible to
Lennie – and why he latches onto their dream. They have
everything that he doesn’t.
American society at the time would make people suspicious
of George and Lennie’s friendship as it was unusual for
people to travel around together.
”What you trying to put over” and “you taking his pay away
from him?” are said by the Boss when he finds out they
travel together. These two quotes show that the boss
suspects something is wrong with them because he isn’t
used to seeing two guys travel around together (as Slim
later comments). He therefore sees George speaking for
Lennie because he doesn’t want him to talk about what
happened in Weed, as suspicious and a bad thing.
George and Lennie had a very rare relationship because
not many people would have friends in this time in America.
Life in America was very hard because men were always
moving around from place to place which would make it
hard to make friends because they may see one guy one
week and then a total different guy the next. Through all
this moving about they wouldn’t be able to carry many
possessions, therefore putting more pressure on their life,
and making it not as much fun.
Another reason why there were not many friendships was
because all the men were in competition to get land so they
would cheat anyone to get their own land.
Steinbeck’s point in including this theme is to show
that friendships in the 1930s didn’t last very long.
Steinbeck shows this by the killing of Candy's dog and
Lennie getting shot. This also shows that society and
friendship didn’t work together during the 1930s.