Companionship

During the Great Depression, American society was plunged into uncertainty and chaos as jobs disappeared and the economy plummeted. Families were uprooted and scattered as people moved around the country in search of work that would allow them to survive—work that was often physically demanding in nature and necessitated grueling hours. As bunk houses on ranches like the one George and Lennie travel to in search of work filled with men—often men traveling alone, separated from their families—male friendship became a necessary distraction (and often even survival mechanism) in the face of social upheaval and economic devastation. Of Mice and Men explores male friendship, and through the relationships contained in the novella, Steinbeck argues that “a guy needs somebody”—even when society seems to value or demand solitude and independence.

Lennie and George’s friendship is the central focus of Of Mice and Men—even as it is presented as a total anomaly in a world where individualism, distrust, and the struggle for survival define the social landscape. “Ain’t many guys travel around together,” says Slim, a mule driver on the Soledad ranch where George and Lennie travel for work; “I don’t know why. Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.” Slim’s simple, straightforward assessment of the American landscape during the depression reflects the mistrust and selfishness of the time period and shows how unusual—and even suspect—George and Lennie’s devoted friendship is to the men around them. Their partnership confuses and surprises many of the men on the ranch—Slim, of course, but also Crooks and Curley, the latter of whom George actually lies to in order to explain why he and Lennie travel together and to seem less suspicious. George tells Curley, the boss’s son, that he and Lennie are cousins in order to make it seem like they are bound to one another out of familial duty. Any other responsibility to one another would, in the midst of the Depression, seem odd—the landscape is such that allegiance and solidarity are unexpected and even suspicious.

George explains to Slim that he and Lennie “look after each other”—their friendship, the novella slowly reveals, is not just for the sake of Lennie’s survival, but rather for both their mutual benefit. While George has a sharp mind and is able to help Lennie avoid social mishaps and the cruelties of the wild American West, he is small and wiry. Lennie, whose huge frame and immense strength are regarded as remarkable by everyone he meets, is in many ways just as responsible for George as George is for Lennie. George warns Lennie never to pick a fight, and as a result, Lennie is hesitant to defend himself—even, for instance, when Curley begins beating him in the bunk house one evening. At the same time, though, George clearly relies on Lennie’s strength to get them both out of tough spots. The minute George tells Lennie that it’s okay to fight back during the bunk house altercation, Lennie stops Curley’s blows by grabbing the man’s hand and crushing it until it is unrecognizable. George and Lennie need one another in very different ways, but their traveling around together is as necessary on a practical level as it is on an emotional one. 

George and Lennie’s arrival changes the atmosphere on the ranch in Soledad, however slightly. When the other laborers and ranch hands see George and Lennie’s mutual trust, they’re skeptical at first—but slowly, over the few days that George and Lennie stay, the social dynamics on the ranch begin to change. Lennie’s insistence on spending time with Crooks makes the black stable hand, who is daily isolated from and ridiculed by his fellow workers, suspicious at first. But after Crooks relents and lets Lennie come into his room one evening to chat, Crooks himself begins to open up about the lack of male friendship he’s experienced on the ranch and admits that “a guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody.” Candy, too, who has been isolated from the others due to his age and his disability, finds himself envious of George and Lennie’s friendship, and seeks to buy his way into their arrangement by offering them the money from his accident toward their pursuit of a farm. Candy and Crooks’s desires for friendship, companionship, and the feeling of mutual trust demonstrates just how profoundly they’ve been lacking in male friendship in spite of being surrounded by men who are, in all likelihood, just as lonely as they are.

Throughout Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck shows just how important friendship, companionship, and mutual trust really are—even for a group of men who have been told and shown that helping one another or sacrificing one’s own well-being for another’s makes them weak or vulnerable. Especially in the midst of the Depression, the idea of putting one’s own life on the line for another was antithetical to American values of individualism and independence. But in Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck argues that without common decency among men, society will crumble.

• friendship is a central theme in the novel, with the most significant being that shared by Lennie and George. The reader learns that when Lennie and George were younger, George got Lennie to jump into the Sacramento River, knowing that he could not swim. After Lennie almost drowned, George felt bad and became Lennie’s protector and friend. When Lennie’s guardian, Aunt Clara, died, George became Lennie’s carer  

• George and Lennie’s unusual friendship is evident from the start of the novel when they camp down by the river for the night. George tries to stop Lennie making himself ill by gulping down stagnant water: ‘You never oughta drink water when it ain’t runnin’, Lennie’. Before they go to sleep he gets frustrated by Lennie’s request for ketchup with his beans, after which Lennie threatens to find a cave to live in. George and Lennie talk about their dream and the importance of friendship: ‘With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us’  

• at the ranch, Lennie and George’s friendship is evident as George speaks for Lennie when they meet the boss. Unable to believe in genuine friendship, the boss suggests that George has ulterior motives for travelling with Lennie such as taking his pay: ‘Well I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is’  

• George continues to protect Lennie, but his final act of friendship comes when he shoots Lennie in the back of the head after Lennie accidentally killed Curley’s wife. He realises that Lennie would be unhappy locked up and that if Curley and his posse catch him, his end will be painful and violent. He ensures that Lennie is thinking about the dream as he dies  

• Candy has had his dog since he was a ‘pup’, but now it is ‘a dragfooted sheepdog, gray of muzzle, and with pale, blind old eyes’. Candy’s friendship with his dog is clear as Steinbeck presents his pride in and love for his old companion: ‘hell of a good sheepdog’. But the dog is so old that Carlson presses him to have it shot. This foreshadows what George must do to Lennie at the end of the novel 

• George forges a new friendship with Slim. He confides in him about how he and Lennie were when they were younger and how he persuaded Lennie to jump in the river. He trusts him enough to recount the events in Weed when Lennie grabbed the girl’s dress and the two were run out of town. After the death of Curley’s wife, Slim’s advice is that of a friend: ‘An s’pose they lock him up an’ strap him down and put him in a cage. That ain’t no good, George’.