Free Will In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. grew up in the abundant Salinas Valley of California. He loved the Salinas Valley, writing to one of his friends, “I think I would like to write the story of this whole valley, of all the little towns and all the farms and the ranches in the wilder hills. I can see how I would like to do it so that it would be the valley of the world.” He achieved his goal of making it the valley of the world through Of Mice and Men. The novel takes place in the Salinas Valley amidst the Great Depression. However, instead of the beautiful place John Steinbeck describes, in Of Mice and Men the ranch where Lennie and George work on acts as only a catalyst for the main characters’ inexorable fate. In Of Mice and Men nearly every scene serves as a foreshadowing for the inevitable tragic ending. One such example is the incident in Weed. It suggested that Lennie had done appalling things in the past and was capable of repeating the same actions. For instance, Lennie got scared when the girl told him to let go of her dress in Weed, and thus he held tighter. When the girl started …show more content…
This preferred method of killing is seen throughout the novel, thus foreshadowing his future murders. For example, in both deaths he broke his victim’s neck to stop them from doing something. With the puppy, he hit it because he wanted to prevent it from biting him, and with Curley’s wife, he broke her neck to stop her screaming. However, both of these deaths were caused by the same desire that had lured Lennie into trouble before, thus foreshadowing his capability to repeat these actions. Lennie was only lured into either of his victims presences to fulfill his desire to feel soft things. His desire proved only to wreak havoc in his life, and continued to do so when Curley’s wife used her silky hair to seduce Lennie into keeping her