Of Mice And Men

     The atmosphere of the ranch is mostly welcoming but a little hostile. Characters like Slim and Carlson helped George and Lennie settle in. Carlson was pretty friendly and humorous when he first met the duo. Instead of ignoring the two workers, Carlson got to know and befriend them. When George introduces Lennie, Carlson jokes about his last name when he says: "'He ain't very small.' He chuckled softly at his joke. 'Ain't small at all,' he repeated." Instead of a simply introducing himself, Carlson talks like he's been friends with George and Lennie for some time. This may be a small line of dialog, but this shows how friendly Carlson is. We also see Slim being gentle and welcoming towards George and Lennie. When he enters the bunkhouse, he decides to introduce himself. He does this in a calm and gentle manner. John Steinbeck even points out how gentle Slim is a few times after he says something. Examples of this are shown here: "He looked kindly at the two in the bunkhouse. 'It's brighter'n a bitch outside,' he said gently... 'Hope you get on my team,' he said. His voice was very gentle...'You guys travel around together?' His tone was friendly." His friendly tone is constantly mentioned over and over. Every question and statement that Slim makes appears to be calm. This shows that Slim is very welcoming and is accepting of new people.
     The ranch workers make the atmosphere welcoming for George and Lennie, but Curley adds hostility to the scene. Most of the ranch workers are off on a good start with the two, except for Curley. Curley doesn't give too much trouble when he's introduced, but he leaves a bad impression on George when Candy tells him all about Curley. After he forces Lennie to talk and asks for his dad, Candy says: "'Curley's like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys. He's alla time picking scraps with big guys. Kind of like he's mad at 'em because he ain't a big guy. You seen little guys like that, ain't you? Always scrappy?'" Candy tells George about his attitude and how he hates bigger men. Seeing how he acted when he saw Lennie, George instantly had a bad feeling of Curley. He thinks that he'll pick on Lennie during their time on the ranch. Curley is the one character that makes the ranch hostile and keeps George and Lennie on their toes.

John Steinbeck may be trying to send us a message about women in the 1930's by not giving Curley's wife a name. In the past, all women were housewives that would take care of the children and do the chores around the house. Women weren't allowed jobs and were basically cleaning and cooking machines. They were basically thought of as objects rather than people most of the time. In the ranch, Curley's wife is known to flirt by giving men "the eye."  It's also easy to see that the ranch workers think that Curley's wife is pretty. We see this in Slim's point of view when he says: "Hi, Good-lookin'." This can be seen at first as a simple compliment but Slim could be saying this because to him, Curley's wife might be just a pretty sight and nothing more. She could be something that the ranchers just like looking at but nothing more than that. She's barely a person to them and this could be the message that Steinbeck is trying to tell us.

So far, I think "Of Mice and Men" is going to be a great story. The first two chapters are setting the stage for the rest of the story. We get to see what George thinks and feels about Lennie and why they left Weed. We then get to meet Candy, Slim, Carlson, The Boss, Curley, and his wife. The introduction of Curley with his hothead attitude and his wife that gives other men the "eye" gets the reader thinking of possible conflicts. The character development and explicit details make the story good and this will help deliver the conflict because we now understand why certain characters act the way they do. Overall, I think the story is good so far, even if we only just learned about the characters.