Character vs. Self

In the novella Of Mice and Men from John Steinback, is about two men, George and Lennie, who are looking for a job. Lennie has a mental illness that gets him into problems. They have a bad past in another location where they were chased out of there. They arrived at another location with a boss’s son who likes to pick fights with others. George and Lennie are in between the fight throughout most of their time. Lennie gets into problems with boss’s son’s wife, and he runs away, which leads to a shocking ending.

The central conflict in Of Mice and Men is character versus self because Lennie has kiddish urges and characteristics that puts him into trouble.

        Lennie has an urge. His urge is of the softness of a mouse, he likes to pet mice. In the beginning of the book, Lennie is petting a dead mouse. Into the story, George and Lennie are walking around looking for a job. In the following quote George is reminding Lennie of what had happened in Weed.                                                                                                                          Jus’ wanted to feel that girl’s dress-jus’ wanted to pet it like it was a mouse- Well, how the hell did she know you jus’ wanted to feel her dress? She jerks back and you hold on like it was a mouse. She yells and we got to hide in a irrigation ditch all day with guys lookin’ for us, and we got to sneak out in the dark and get outta’ the country. (Pg 11)                                                                                  This quote shows that Lennie had no intentions into harming the little girl, he just wanted to feel her dress. The dress caught his eye and gave him the urge to pet it like a mouse. This is important because he is a sensitive person who has urges that are strong, which can lead to a problem like being chased by a mob of people. This quote also shows that Lennie still acts or thinks like a little kid. I say this because little kids are curious, and so is Lennie. This is important because even if he looks like a grown man he still has characteristics of a kid.
                                                                                                              

By this time into the story, George and Lennie find a new place to work at. In this place there are other workers that are helpful. The boss’s son, Curly, is like a troublemaker that takes care of his wife. From early days, Curly seemed as if he did not like Lennie. The following summary is when Lennie was smiling and Curly thought he was laughing at him.                                                                                                                                       In summary, Curly and Lennie got into a fight. Curly began the fight, when Lennie did not even want to fight. While Curly slugged Lennie, Lennie resisted fighting back. He waited for George’s permission to fight back. When he had the permission, Lennie held one of Curly’s fists and crushed it. After the fight Lennie felt sorry and said,” I didn’t wanta hurt him.”                                                                                            This summary shows that Lennie is not violent. He did not want to fight back and did not want to hurt Curly on purpose. This is important because he never meant to harm Curly so badly as Lennie had stated. Lennie is like a fighter that does not like to fight. Another point this summary demonstrates is that Lennie is loyal to George. I say this because George told Lennie not to get into trouble, therefore Lennie did not want to fight back either. This is important because Lennie respects and looks up to George, and does not want to let him down.

Lennie is very strong, but he does not know his strength. In the story, Lennie had accidentally killed Curley’s wife. He snapped her neck while he was touching her hair. Lennie ran away to the spot George had told him to go if he got into trouble. In the following summary, Lennie is thinking about leaving and not waiting for George to come, to abandon him.                                                                                                                                                In summary, Lennie is hallucinating that his Aunt Clara is with him and telling Lennie how George’s life would be so much better without Lennie. Then he hallucinates a talking rabbit, since Lennie loves rabbits, the rabbits are saying that he will never be able to touch them again.

This summary shows Lennie is hallucinating because he is scared about what is going to happen. This is important because he may have never killed someone which scared him to hallucinate things. Another idea you can get from this is that maybe Aunt Clara may have treated Lennie in a certain way to be able to hallucinate about her. This is important because Aunt Clara may have been strict on Lennie, which changed his life style.

In conclusion, Lennie is versus himself because of these reasons. He has urges and characteristics that puts him into problems that lead up to the final ending. Lennie has an urge to touch things that catch his eye. He also has kiddish and strong characteristics that Lennie is not able to control.