Animals

Question 1

How is Lennie compared to an animal

Answer 1

‘And he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws’
‘Snorting into the water like a horse’
‘Slowly, like a terrier who doesn’t want to bring a ball to its master, Lennie approached.’
‘Lennie covered his face with huge paws and bleated with terror.’
‘He pawed up the hay until it partly covered her.’
-The constant referral shows his innocent and how he didn’t mean to kill Curley’s wife and how it was just instinct. The brush has a garden of Eden style and this places Lennie in a good environment can be very meaningful

Question 2

Describe the symbolism of the mouse

Answer 2

Robert burns poem ‘to a mouse’
The best laid schemes of o’mice a men gang aft agley, an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ lain, for promisd joy!

Question 3

How is Curley’s wife death foreshadowed

Answer 3

Mouse - puppy - Curley’s wife

Question 4

How do the rabbits show the importance of the dream

Answer 4

‘Let’s have different colour rabbits, George. Sure we will, George said sleepily. Red and blue and green rabbits, Lennie. Millions of em. Furry ones, George, like i seen in the fair in Sacramento. Sure furry ones.’
‘And then the direction of the state highway came the sound of footsteps on crisp sycamore leaves. The rabbits hurried noiselessly for cover.’ This shows how when Lennie and George approach the dream it disappears from them showing how it’s impossibility of achieving the American dream.

Question 5

Describe the importance of candy’s dog

Answer 5

‘Carl’s right, candy. That dog ain’t no good to himself. I wisht somebody’d shoot me if i got old an a cripple.’
‘ i had him so long. Had him since he was a pup.’
‘I ought to have shot that dog myself, George, I shouldn’t ought to have let no stranger shoot my dog.’
The dog is not valuable to farm so it might be dead. It has no economic value. Shows candy’s isolation and how brutal it is and how people have to contribute economically the business(ranch)

Question 6

How is the water snake important

Answer 6

‘A water snake glided smoothly up the pool, twisting it’s periscope head from side to side; and it swam the length of the came and came to the legs of a motionless heron that stood in the shallows.’ Allusion the genesis and how it is the temptation of Adam and Eve. The devil. This shows how the dream that will never been fulfilled.

Question 7

So what is john stienbeck trying to say about 1930s America(animals)

Answer 7

Unreality of American dream e.g. snake, mouse
Their is contrast of animals of the natural world and the hearth reality of human made society and how this leads to isolation amongst migrant workers especially