Of Mice and Men Ch.5

Of Mice and Men Chapter 5 was written by John Steinbeck. Spoilers ahead! There is once again some of that beautiful Naturalist Steinbeck imagery to set the scene, and we see Lennie in the barn holding the puppy he killed on accident. As this is foreshadowing, so is much of Lennie's interactions with people and animals up to this point. Curley's wife comes in and, although a bit disturbed by the dead dog, is just happy to have someone to talk to. She mentions she doesn't like Curley, but married him to spite her mother and move out because she "wasn't gonna stay no place... where they stole your letters." Interestingly, very similar to how Lennie could "go off and live in the hills and not get no more mice stole from me" at the beginning of the book. Lennie ends up accidentally killing Curley's wife, just as she begins to develop as a character. There is a lot of narrative on women's rights in the early 1900's as well as Steinbeck's view of women and suicide we could get into here- but we wont. The body is discovered by Candy and George who figure out a way to make it look like George found out about it the same time the rest of the guys did. George convinces Slim that Lennie couldn't have done it on purpose, but a man-hunt is called by Curley- they are going to find the murderous Lennie, beat him, and have him hung in town. We see a lot of foreshadowing in this chapter, as well as the repeated theme of Loneliness and Running From your Problems does not solve them. This video/audio recording is for entertainment and educational purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended.