Of Mice and Men

Vic xuan

Period 2

10/18/10

The novela, Of Mice and Men by John Steinback is about helpless workers who need to find a living by traveling together, George Milton and Lennie Short. They encountered and overcame many obstacles throughout their adventure but come to a conflict with their new job. The central conflict in Of Mice and Men is character vs character and it is showed when Curley shows his hatred to Lennie. Curley has something against Lennie and Lennie doesn’t have permission to retaliate if Lennie were to attack him. George won’t back Lennie up if Curley starts something because he doesn’t want to lose his place in the ranch, so Lennie is left to a conflict on his own against Curley, the son of the ranch.

Lennie, being the one isolated from everyone else and being bullied by a man in power, introduces the central conflict in the story, character vs character. After arriving to the ranch, Lennie is detached from everyone else and Curley has brought up the idea in bullying the bigger person. Lennie has promised not to talk at the ranch in order to make no mistakes to keep their job and get a stake. Curley first meets the newcomers in the ranch and encounters Lennie by saying,

“Well nex’ time you answer when you’re spoke to.”(pg26) “He turned toward the door and walked out, and his elbows were still bent out a little. George watched him out, and then he turned back to the swamper. Say, what the hell’s he got on his shoulder?”

Curley demands for Lennie to talk instead of letting George talking his way through. Curley wants to humiliate Lennie and use Lennie’s confounding words as an excuse to hurt him. This quote shows character vs character because it shows that right in the beginning of book, he walks out after asking Lennie to talk and with an attitude, making a point of what he said, to talk. Lennie always had another person against him, this time its Curley who wants him gone.

Character vs character is based upon Lennie and Curley, and when Curley starts to rage, tension builds between the two. After Curley walks into the bunks where Slim, Candy, Carlson and George and Lennie are at, he looks for his wife. The men tease Curley for always looking for his wife and not having a hold on her. Candy cracks and joke and Lennie starts to giggle. He yells

“Come on, ya big b*s*a*d. Get up on your feet......I’ll show ya who’s yella.”(pg62)

This quote shows the conflict of character vs character because Curley is now directly targeting Lennie for an attack. Hes not holding back and is exploding his rage on Lennie, which will consequent in a fight and end when one person fatally hurts the other. The resulting character vs character conflict is a furious bloody fight between Lennie and Curley. This shows the tension between the two characters and how Lennie, staying at the ranch, always has to deal with Curley being on his back. Lennie is never safe to do anything relax or he’ll dread messing up. George must always look out for Lennie, but as he steps aways, Lennie must guard himself before Curley decides to get rid of him.

If committed a mistake, Lennie would panic and go through deep trouble. In the book, after accidentally killing Curley’s beloved wife because he panicked when she was screaming, Curley has found out and doesn’t show emotion for the death of his wife. Instead he quickly says,

“I’ll shoot ‘im in the guts. Come on, you guys.”(pg 96) “He ran furiously out of the barn. Carlson said, ‘I’ll get my Luger,’ and he ran out too.”

After seeing his wife, all he cares about is killing Lennie. He never showed any feeling towards her wife nor does he mention her at all. This shows that Curley has found his reason to kill Lennie and therefore, immediately heads out to hunt him down. He also believes that everyone else is going to help him and take down Lennie especially because Carlson agreed to shoot Lennie as well.

The conflict of character vs. character is widely displayed between Curley and Lennie’s bickering. When they first arrive, Curley has started to hate Lennie and even when they adjust to the ranch, he hates him. He will hate him until they leave. This connects to life today, because many smaller men tend to dislike bigger men because he wasn’t the size he would like to be. It’d make his life easier if there were no larger men around so he wouldn’t be considered small. Lennie is the driver for the conflict of the book. He causes Curley to hate him just because he is big. Character vs character is the main conflict in Of Mice and Men because the tension between Lennie and Curley continue to build up throughout the story and end with a death.