The Role Of Animals In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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I´ve heard that when no one is listening to what you are saying, a dog always his ears open for you. Afterall, a dog is a man's best friend even though his is an animal. Many people have all kinds of different animals as pets and consider them as one of their family members. In Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”, he uses animals to describe the characters to allow the readers to get to know what each character is like in an interesting way. Steinbeck writes about two best friends, George and Lennie, who are looking for a job they can keep in the California farms of depression. They are complete opposites but have one thing in common, the dream. Both friends want to save enough money to buy a ranch of their own. The dream is the glue that keeps …show more content…
Lennie was standing near the Salinas river which is a couple miles south from Soledad under the Gabilan Mountains. There was even the same water snake in the river. “ A water snake slipped along the pool, its head held up like a little periscope” ( page 7). The water snake in this story is Lennie. Steinbeck describes the water snake slipping away as symbol of Lennie starting his journey towards his death. “ A water snake glided smoothly up the pool, twisting his periscope head from side to side; and it swam the length of the pool and came to the legs of a motionless heron that stood in the shallows. A silent head and beak lanced down and plucked it out by the head and its tail waved frantically” ( page 99). Steinbeck uses the image of a water snake to show Lennie’s death. The author describes a large heron bending to snatch every water snake that came in it’s direction.This shows that death comes quickly and shockingly to the unaware. Lennie had no idea that death was waiting for him. Even though the water snake is thought of as evil, here it was helpless. Lennie, too, is just like the helpless water snake, unsuspecting his own death thinking that he and George will run away again like always. However, Lennie didn’t die alone. Two other things died with him, the dream and his friendship with George. The beginning of the story had already foreshadowed that Lennie had started his journey towards the light and his friendship with George started its journey towards the finish

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