Of Mice and Men

by John Steinbeck

Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love.

To read Of Mice and Men as Steinbeck intended is to keep firmly in mind its original title, “Something That Happened,” a phrase expressing the non-judgmental acceptance that imprints his best work of the 1930s and early 40s.

Try to understand each other. You can’t hate men if you know them.

To be a farmworker was to be among California’s dispossessed, a powerless, degraded, ill-paid fraternity. “It is the constant craving for human company, for friends, that is so strong among the floating class,”

Most men hate to travel alone on the road.”

Throughout his career, he viewed each book as an experiment, a chance to turn to a new subject or try his hand at a new form;

To write for the theater was to be acutely aware of audience, their emotional response to the stage and the experience of feeling “yourself drawn into the group that was playing.”

He could be both symbolic artist and disciplined craftsman, a writer for the sophisticated and for the masses.

Steinbeck’s oeuvre has a remarkable range because he ceaselessly experimented with genres, with subjects, with techniques.

The title that Steinbeck finally selected underscores the unpredictability of existence as well as its promise,

Taken from a poem by Robert Burns, the novel’s title suggests the transitory quality of even “best laid schemes.” The poem tells of an unfortunate field mouse whose home is flattened by a plow:

In proving foresight may be vain:

“Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. They come to a ranch an’ work up a stake and then they go inta town and blow their stake, and the first thing you know they’re poundin’ their tail on some other ranch. They ain’t got nothing to look ahead to.”

You seen little guys like that, ain’t you? Always scrappy?”

There was a gravity in his manner and a quiet so profound that all talk stopped when he spoke.

His tone was friendly. It invited confidence without demanding it.

Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”

A guy needs somebody—to be near him.” He whined, “A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody.

Sometimes he gets thinkin’, an’ he got nothing to tell him what’s so an’ what ain’t so. Maybe if he sees somethin’, he don’t know whether it’s right or not. He can’t turn to some other guy and ast him if he sees it too. He can’t tell. He got nothing to measure by.

Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head.”

“You guys is just kiddin’ yourself. You’ll talk about it a hell of a lot, but you won’t get no land.

Seems like ever’ guy got land in his head.”

As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.

Then gradually time awakened again and moved sluggishly on.

He said woodenly, “If I was alone I could live so easy.” His voice was monotonous, had no emphasis. “I could get a job an’ not have no mess.”