‘Of Mice and Men’ Conflicts

     One conflict in the book is Man vs. Man, Lennie is extremely dependent on George. After Lennie’s aunt died George took Lennie in, basically as his family. Since then George has felt as if Lennie was his responsibility. I think that Lennie is extremely dependent on George, for example, in the book Curley started a fight with Lennie. Lennie was waiting for George to give him instructions for what to do. He didn’t start defending himself until George told him to. This could possibly cause future consequences because if something ever happens to George, Lennie will be completely clueless on what to do. So, I think that George needs to start teaching Lennie on how to become more independent, it would be a benefit for both of them.

     Another conflict in the book is Man vs. Man, and it is between Carlson and Candy. During the third chapter Carlson convinced Candy to let him kill his dog. This is a big turning point in Candy’s life because he said that he had the dog with him since the dog was a puppy. I think that Candy might possibly go into a dark place because he misses his dog so much. I also think that he will have a bad relationship with Carlson because to Candy he will just be known as the guy who killed his dog. If Candy is to go into a dark place I think that it will effect how he acts at work, because typically when people are sad they don’t put much effort into things and they may just want to be left alone.

‘Of Mice and Men’

     The atmosphere of the ranch and bunkhouse was pretty average. What I mean by this is that everybody seems to be pretty calm, but there was a little bit of tension between Lennie and Curley. We were introduced to a lot of new characters. Some characters were informally introduced, those characters I think are, Slim, Carlson, Swamper. They are considered informally introduced because they either came into a conversation, or they were talked about during another conversation. We were formally introduced to a few characters. Those characters are George, Lennie, Curley’s wife, Curley, and the boss. These characters are considered formally introduced because we were given a little background knowledge of them, or they joined a conversation and introduced themself.

     I think that the message John Steinbeck is trying to send about Curley’s wife is that she is mysterious. None of the men who knew she was Curley’s wife actually knew what her name was. I also noticed that none of them asked what her name was. When Curley asked which way she had gone to George he didn’t mention her name either. I think that he is trying to make her mysterious because she might have something to do possibly with the conflict. When she came in to ask the men if they knew where Curley was she didn’t explain her reason to why she wanted to speak with him. Maybe she was there to do something bad, which could also impact the conflict possibly.

     My overall impression so far of the book is that it is pretty interesting. I say this because so far we don’t know much about any of the characters, except for George and Lennie. So since we don’t know much about the book it makes you a little more interested to keep turning the page and see what happens next. I think that we are going to start learning about what the conflict is because we have met a lot of the characters already. I also think that we are moving past the exposition and going into the inciting action.