Innocent Killer

What literary device does the author utilize in the scenes that include animals?

Of Mice and Men is a novel written by John Steinbeck, in which he tells a story about two workers named George Milton and Lennie Small. The story is about George and Lennie going to work on a ranch to make enough money for their own farm, but sadly they never make it to that “American Dream” they once had. In the novel Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck incorporates the literary device of foreshadowing to elucidate the significance of death throughout the novel.

A Taste of Death

Lennie and George were staying the night in a forest on their way to a job. George was preparing the fire and Lennie was supposed to be looking for sticks, but instead he was playing with a mouse. The mouse had bitten Lennie so he pinched the mouses head and just like that it was dead. Of Mice and Men, page 5, “George looked sharply at him. ‘What’d you take outta that pocket?’ ‘Ain’t a thing in my pocket,’ Lennie said cleverly. ‘I know there ain’t. You got it in your hand. What you got in your hand-hidin’ it?’ ‘I ain’t got nothin’, George. Honest.’ ‘Come on, give it here.’ Lennie held his closed hand away from George’s direction. ‘It’s on’y a mouse, George.’ ‘A mouse? A live mouse?’ ‘Uh-uh. Jus’ a dead mouse, George.'” A closer look at the evidence indicates that Lennie had just accidentally killed a mouse due to his overwhelming strength. This appears to be Lennie’s first taste of death, thus foreshadowing more to come.

Puddle of Blood

Candy’s dog is useless, old, smelly, and has no reason to live. Of Mice and Men, chapter 2, “No, I couldn’t do that. I had ‘im too long.” The evidence appears to suggest that Candy does not want his dog dead because it is the only thing to keep him from loneliness. Without the dog Candy would feel a sense of melancholy and sadness. This foreshadows why George was so sad after killing Lennie himself.Of Mice and Men, chapter 2, “Carlson tells Slim his thoughts about the dog, saying, ‘That dog of Candy’s is so God damn old he can’t hardly walk. Stinks like hell too.'” This shows Candy’s loyalty to the dog is very similar to that of George’s toward Lennie. It seems both George and Candy care a lot for something that is almost useless.

Golden Murder

Lennie was sitting in the barn upset, for he had just killed a puppy. His unawareness of his strength had killed the puppy. Of Mice and Men, chapter 5, “Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice. I didn’t bounce you hard.” The evidence seems to suggest Lennie has killed another animal, thus leading to a bigger animal, such as Curley’s wife. As Lennie is trying to figure out what to do with the puppy, Curley’s wife walks in and sits down by Lennie. Of Mice and Men, chapter 5, “Lennie went back and looked at the dead girl. The puppy lay close to her. Lennie picked it up. ‘I’ll throw him away,’ he said. ‘It’s bad enough like it is.'” The evidence’s findings lend to support to the claim that Lennie is overwhelmed with the situation he has put himself in and is very timid about what to do. These deaths show that Lennie is an unintentional threat and foreshadows his own death later in the book.

A Friends Absence

After Lennie killed Curley’s wife, George knew they were out for revenge. George had decided to kill the biggest animal of them all, Lennie, for it was foreshadowed earlier in the novel when Candy was not the one to kill his dog. Of Mice and Men, page 106, “And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face was set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger.” This shows that George was not going to make the same mistsake Candy did by not swallowing his pride and killing the dog himself.

In conclusion, George killing Lennie was foreshadowed throughtout the whole novel starting from the minor death of the mouse and finishing with the murder of Curley’s wife. Each death gained more signifigance as the novel went on, finally building up to the grand finale of George killing Lennie.