TheReviewon“OfMiceandMen”.doc

The Review on “Of Mice and Men” I have never known about John Steinbeck who was once a controversial character in American literary circles, until I read the excerpts from the novel “Of Mice and Men”. This novel with a strong flavor of naturalism has great social significance. This is a story with a tragic ending about the devoted friendship between a ranch hand George and his feeble-minded help Lennie. They based their friendship on their common dream of running a ranch of their own, but in the highly commercialized American society full of challenges and corruption, nobody understands their friendship. Their dream only ends up in tragedy. The author seems to tell the readers that you are as intelligent as human being or as inconsiderable as a mouse, you are to struggle for survival, but the effort of a little people always turns out to be a failure. Steinbeck is good at describing those poor rural laboring people mostly during the1930s, especially the Great Depression. The common theme in his works is that human society resembles the animal world in many ways such as the struggle for survival. In this novel, Lennie is a huge, powerful, semi-idiot. As Steinbeck says, he is a reduction of humanity to the lowest common denominator; while George fills out Lennie’s pattern to complete a whole man. He is a good man, motivated to protect Lennie because he realizes that Lennie is the reverse image of his own human nature. George is a representation of humanity that is aware of evil. A successful contrast between the mood of attitude of the two major characters brings the story to its climax. According to Steinbeck’s own theory, this novel is certainly a play-novelette. Therefore, as a master of scene description, he’s good at beginning a story or a chapter with scene description to set the keynote. For example, the opening scene of the green pool in the Salinas presents a dynamic picture with sounds. It promises serenity, but in the final scene the