For Lennie , rabbits represent an escape from the obstacles he faces as a mentally-disabled man. The dog of Candy , the elderly, disabled swamper on the ranch in Soledad, is a parallel to Candy himself as well as to the relationship between George and Lennie. After losing his hand…. The puppy Lennie adopts on the ranch in Soledad represents the futility of the strong trying to care for the weak, and the inevitability of fate.
The days-old puppy symbolizes the inescapability of doom and…. Of Mice and Men. Plot Summary. Ask students to provide other examples of symbols that occur in daily life. This should also be assigned as writing homework. See Short Writing Prompts for more details.
As this will also be an ongoing activity, students need to track symbols found in Of Mice and Men in their notebooks. Discussion of symbols should be part of each class discussion, and students should initiate the discussion.
During the course of the novel, the following symbols should be discussed students will be encouraged to come up with many others. This may represent freedom, self-reliance, and the payoff from hard work. For this reason, events often appear to be random.
George's Solitaire game in the bunkhouse is exactly that. It symbolizes the random appearance of events just as cards are drawn out at random from the deck. All is a matter of chance in Solitaire, and the same is true of the events in the book that Steinbeck thought about titling "Something That Happened. The world is unpredictable, and in this setting, plans often "go awry.
Hands are also used symbolically throughout the novel. The men on the ranch are called "hands," indicating that each has a job to do to make the ranch work as a whole. This takes away their humanity and individual personalities. They are workers, not men. Lennie's hands, or paws, are symbols of trouble. Whenever he uses them — as he does on Curley — trouble ensues. Candy's missing hand is a symbol of his helplessness in the face of advancing old age and his fear that he will be deemed useless and fired when only one hand is not enough.
George's hands are small and strong, the hands of a doer and planner. Curley is symbolic of "small" people who may feel inferior and overcompensate by inflating or flaunting their power and status.
Crooks is symbolic of people who are discriminated against because of their race. Candy is symbolic of people who are undervalued and discriminated against because of their age. Carlson is symbolic of people who are oblivious to the feelings of others, and who can only be concerned about something if it affects them personally. Slim is symbolic of the archetype of the hero, king, or leader. He represents those few who, in their wisdom and strength, seem larger than life.
George is symbolic of "the everyman" — the type of normal, average person who is found everywhere and whose feelings and actions are neither exceptional nor terrible. It is a safe sanctuary to meet and a place free from society, where Lennie and George can be themselves. What happens in the grove stays in the grove.
This is where the story is born and where the dream farm and Lennie meet their end.
0コメント