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Much has been said and written about John Steinbeck’s classic 1937 novella, Of Mice and Men. The tale of two bindlestiffs, Lennie and George, teaches readers about loyalty and love, sacrifice and justice while also imparting the value of parallelism and foreshadow in storytelling. For those who would benefit from a refresher, Lennie and George are two Depression-era laborers who crisscross the countryside looking for work. The story opens with the two about to arrive at a ranch. Lennie has been hiding a dead mouse in his pocket. George, clearly his caretaker, demands that his dimwitted but powerful charge give it up. George is the intelligent member of the pair while Lennie is simple and childlike. After a small protest, Lennie concedes. Those familiar with this novella know that Lennie has always been enamored of soft things: mice, bunnies, puppies, and the hair of attractive women. He got himself in some trouble at their previous place of employment, which makes readers attentive to how he might do the same at the ranch. Lennie’s fate is practically sealed from the beginning. Too dumb to stay out of trouble, he quickly enough gets into trouble with the wife of the boss’s son, breaking her neck as he gets lost in petting her head. He flees. The ranch-hands put tother a posse. But George finds him first and, after distracting his large and simple-minded friend, shoots him in the head in an act of love and protection. The debate continues still.
What is interesting throughout this masterpiece is Steinbeck’s command of timing. Before George kills his friend, Carlson, a ranch-hand who has been pestering Candy, another ranch-hand up there in years, to put his equally old dog down, finally gets his way. Carlson says to the old man, “If you want me to, I’ll put the old devil out of his misery right now and get it over with. Ain’t nothing left for him. Can’t eat, can’t see, can’t even walk without hurtin’.” to which Candy, clearly affected by the thought of losing his beloved pet replies, “Maybe tomorra. Le’s wait till tomorra.” Carlson is not having it, and very reluctantly, Candy gives in. “Awright -- take ‘im,” he says before refusing to look at his dog and laying back on his bunk and staring at the ceiling.
Carlson retrieves his Luger and gently leads the old dog outside. The anticipation begins to build.
Someone offers to play cards. Someone else hears a gnawing sound coming from under the floor and suggests that it might be a rat. Candy remains motionless. Everybody is waiting for the gunshot. What is, in my humble opinion, dear listeners, genius about this scene is that the time it takes to read from the moment the dog is led outside to the inevitable gunshot is, roughly, the amount of time it would really take to perform this act in real life. Steinbeck brings the reader to that sad and charged moment in how he inserts some awkward small talk into the scene. The reader is present with Candy and the others in those dreadful moments before Carlson pulls the trigger. Time is leveraged in such a way as to make the killing of Candy’s dog just as painful to the reader as to Candy himself. The event is anchored to a common passage of time -- one fictional, the other very much real – and the result delivers a gut-punch of raw emotion.
Of course, this shooting foreshadows the final shooting. Candy later laments that it should have been him who put down his dog. George clearly recalls this detail when he makes the decision to “put down” his friend, Lennie. Running through it all, however, is a pacing we are all familiar with – a sense of time that is not foreign to our everyday experience – and the overall result is the ability to see the characters as we see ourselves, flawed human beings doing our best every second, every minute, every hour we are gifted.
