Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Structure & Setting
- Structure
- Nature starts and ends the novella
- Starts and ends at the outdoor pool
- Start with life and dreams
- Ends with death
- At the beginning and end they are on the run
- For what happened in Weed
- Death of Curley's wife
- Suggests that the life of a migrant worker in the 1930s was a cycle
of working and moving on
- No escape
- Written like a Play
- Entrances and exits are some of the key moments in the novel
- Easy to stage
- Each chapter has only one location
- Descriptions at the beginning of Chapters are very specific
- Like instructions to a stage designer
- Foreshadowing
- Uses this to suggest characters fates are inevitable
- Girl in Weed was wearing a red
dress when Lennie grabbed her
- Just like Curley's wife
- George and Lennie have an escape plan before
even arriving at the ranch
- Lennie will hide by the pool if something goes wrong
- Shows Lennie's voice increasing in a deadly pattern
- Dead mice - dead dog - crushed hand - dead girl
- Setting
- Ranch
- Chapter Two and Three are set in the bunkhouse
- 'whitewashed' walls and an 'unpainted' floor
- Mirrors how basic the men's lives are
- Men's things described as little 'articled' or 'vials;
- Shows these men only own small things the can carry on their backs
- Nothing is permanent for them
- Lot's of men have 'medicines' and George has 'liniment'
- Shows the men have to look after themselves to stay healthy enough for work
- Symbolic of never-ending pain on the ranch
- Pool Represents Safety
- First Chapter George tells Lennie to 'hide in the bush' by the pool if
anything goes wrong
- Safe place where he won't be found
- Ironic how George shoots Lennie in his sanctuary
- Description of the pool mirrored in First and Final Chapters
- Top of the mountains 'flame' and 'blaze'
- Lizard makes 'a great skittering'
- Some differences which suggest it's no longer safe for Lennie
- In Chapter One a Heron flew off leaving the water snake
- In Chapter Six, a Heron kills a water snake and then flies off
- In Chapter One men's voices could be heard in the distance
- In Chapter Six the voices came closer and closer to the pool