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Lennie
® Lennie Small is a likeable, loving character who is portrayed to us to
be this big cuddly grizzly bear who we feel sympathy for because his
mental handicap limits his abilities to think and behave rationally.
® Lennie acts with great loyalty to George but has no idea of the
concept of loyalty and so doesn’t do things to purposely get himself
in trouble but it’s due to the fact he has no conscience and doesn’t
feel a sense of guilt.
® Lennie is the least dynamic character – he undergoes no changes
during the novel in the sense he doesn’t grow as a character or
learn/develop new skills or become more mature
® Lennie is the same as when we first meet him. He is a dramatic device
who we just don’t understand even if we try there’s still ambiguity
® Lennie symbolises the ‘wise fool’ who is mentally inferior but able to
reveal the best and worst of others. His foolishness allows him to speak
honestly and openly even if it isn’t appreciated.
® Lennie is symbolic of people who are mistreated and discriminated
against because of their mental disabilities and in 1930s America if
anyone knew Lennie had autism or this mental disability bot him and
George would be kicked out and Lennie would probably be killed in
a brutal way.
, ® ENGLISH GCSE – OF MICE & MEN
aren’t done maliciously by Lennie. Slim says Lennie ‘ain’t a bit mean’ and
Slim is a God like character who we trust the most and so the reader is
forced to agree that Lennie doesn’t mean any harm.
Innocent & Childlike:
➝ Lennie is a powerful man with huge hands and his name is Lennie
Small which adds a sense of irony to him and an element of humour.
➝ Lennie is physically grown up but mentally he’s a child. His language is
poor in the sense he has no sense of grammar reflecting his poor
education and incapability’s to learn.
➝ Lennie asks lots of questions denoting his innocence and George
treats him like a young son. As with a child repetition is the best way to
learn and so when George needed Lennie to learn to ‘hide in the
brush’ he made Lennie repeat it several times – he also tells Lennie
their ‘dream’ denoting some sort of bedtime story to help him sleep.
➝ Lennie lacks a general awareness of social conversations and his mind
constantly wonders, possibly because of his mental illness.
➝ Lennie doesn’t understand racism towards Crooks hence why he
enters his room in Scene 4, likewise Lennie is happy to talk to Curley’s
wife, even though she’s a female and Rejected by other characters
on the ranch due to her gender.
➝ Lennie acts like a helpless child of George who abides by the rules but
also breaks them, like when he picks up the mouse, but at the end of
the day he obeys and listens to George as any good son would.
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