Please take notes
 All
sense of optimism for the farm or the
freedom the men would have on it
dissolves now that Lennie’s unwittingly
dangerous nature has reasserted itself.
 When Curley’s wife appears and insists
on talking with Lennie, the reader senses
that something tragic is about to ensue.
 Most
significant development-Curley’s wife
 Flirt, temptress, manipulator
 Final moments before her death-Steinbeck
presents her sympathetically
 Her loneliness becomes the focus of the
scene
 She admits that she too has an idea of
paradise that circumstances have denied her
 Her dream of being a movie star is similar to
the dream of the farm
 Both are desperate held views of the way life
should be-they have persisted despite their
conflict with reality
 Curley’s
wife seems to sense that
because Lennie doesn’t understand
much, she can say anything to him.
 Confesses her unhappy marriage, lonely
life, broken dreams
 Fails to see the danger in Lennie and
attempts to console him for the loss of his
puppy by letting him stroke her hairleads her tragic death
 Once
all the marks of an unhappy life
have left her face, she is pretty, simple,
sweet, young-brought back to innocence.
 It seems that the only way to restore
innocence is through death.
 Lennie’s flight from the barn shifts to
focus to George.
 The
painful mission that must be done is
clear to him
 Slim-voice of reason pointing out that the
best option is to kill Lennie.
 George understands he had no other
choice-either watch his friend be
murdered by Curley’s lynch mob or do
the deed himself, giving Lennie dignity.
 The
Dream of the farm disappears.
 Candy clings to this idealized hope,
asking if they can still buy it.
 His response is the most insightful and
realistic in response to the novel-there is
no room for dreaming in such a difficult
and inhospitable world.
 Once
again, scene opens in the clearing
in the woods, with the riverbed and its
surroundings described as beautiful and
idyllic. Many details are repeated from
the book’s opening passages such as the
quality of the sunset, the distant
mountains, the water snakes. This time,
the natural beauty is marred by the
suffering of innocents.
 Final
Scene between George and Lennie is
suffused with sadness, even though Lennie
retains his blissful ignorance until the end.
 To reassure Lennie, George reassures him
with the Dream one last time.
 For George, this final description of life with
Lennie and the farm is a surrender of his
dreams.
 The vision of the farm recedes and George
realizes that all his work has amounted to
nothing.
 George
realizes he is exactly the man he
tried to convince himself he was not-just
another migrant worker who is not able
to afford anything.
 Without Lennie, George relinquishes his
hope for a different life.
 Lennie was the only thing that
distinguished his life from the lives of the
other men and gave him a special sense
of purpose-w/o Lennie these hopes die.
 Grim note on which the novel closes is
that dreams have no place in a world
filled with such injustice and adversity.
 Only
Slim understands the profound loss
and knows George needs consoling.
 Carlson and Curley watch Slim lead
George away and their puzzlement is
rooted more in ignorance than
heartlessness. Carlson and Curley
represent the harsh conditions of a
distinctly real world, a world in which the
weak will always be vanquished by the
strong and in which the rare delicate
bond between friends is not
appropriately mourned because it is not
understood.