Remember when you are tackling Section B in the Of Mice and Men exam you must use quotations from the rest of the text and not the extract. You only have 20 minutes or so to write your answer so flicking through the book can waste time.
Here are some key quotations you might want to try to remember to give yourself more time in the exam.
Chapter
1:
George
‘restless eyes and sharp, strong features. Every part of him was defined’
Lennie
is George’s ‘opposite’, ‘dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his
paws’
George
‘That’s all you ever can remember is them rabbits.’
Calls
Lennie a ‘crazy bastard’ and a ‘good boy’.
‘God,
you’re a lots of trouble…I could get a long so easy and so nice if I didn’t
have you on my tail.’
‘Guys
like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no
family. They don’t belong no place...With us it ain’t like that. We got a
future.’
Lennie
– ‘Because…because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after
you.’
‘An’
live off the fatta the lan’.’
George
– ‘You ain’t gonna get in no trouble, because if you do, I won’t let you tend
the rabbits.’
Chapter
2:
Boss
– ‘On his head was a soiled brown Stetson hat, and he wore high-heeled boots
and spurs to prove he was not a labouring man.’
“What
stake you got in this guy?”
Curley
– ‘His glance was at once calculating and pugnacious’ ‘angry little man’
Candy
says Curley is ‘pretty handy’ ‘He hates big guys’ ‘Curley’s pants is full of
ants.’
Lennie
looks to George for ‘instruction’
George
– ‘Lennie’s strong and quick and Lennie don’t know no rules.’
Candy
on Curley’s wife – ‘she’s got the eye’ ‘a tart’
Many
characters refer to Crooks as ‘Stable Buck’ and ‘nigger’ rather than by his
name.
G
- “Hide in the brush by the river.”
Curley’s
wife – ‘She had full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up’
Lennie
calls her ‘purty’ and George calls her ‘poison’ and ‘jail-bait’
Slim
– ‘he moved with a majesty only achieved by royalty and master craftsmen’ ‘the
prince of the ranch’
George
on Lennie, to Slim ‘We kinda look after each other.’ ‘Hell of a nice fella, but
he ain’t bright.’
Slime
to George - “Maybe everybody in the whole world is scared of each other,”
Chapter
3:
Slim
– calls Lennie a ‘cuckoo’ ‘Guy don’t need no sense to be a nice fella.’ ‘He’s
jes’ like a kid.’
‘Slim’s
opinions were law’
Slim
– ‘I wisht somebody’d shoot me if I get old an’ a cripple.’
Crooks’
face is ‘lined with pain’
DREAM George - ‘we’d have our own place where we belonged and not sleep
in no bunk-house’ ‘It’d be our own, an’ nobody could can us’
‘This
thing they had never really believed in was coming true.’
Candy
– ‘I ought to of shot that dog myself.’
Carlson
on Curley – ‘god-damn punk’
FIGHT George says ’Get him, Lennie’
Curley
‘flopping like a fish on a line’ (same simile used for Curley’s wife when she
is killed)
Chapter
4:
Crooks
is ‘a proud, aloof man. He kept his distance and demanded that other people
keep theirs’
‘had
accumulated more possessions than he could carry on his back’
‘I
can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink.’
‘This
is just a nigger talkin’, an’ a busted-back nigger. So it don’t mean nothing,
see?’
‘A
guy needs somebody…A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody.’
‘Just
like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’’
‘It
was difficult for Crooks to conceal his pleasure with anger’
‘I’d
come an’ lend a hand.’
‘You
got no rights comin’ in a coloured man’s room.’
Curley’s
wife on Crooks – ‘I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even
funny.’
Crooks
had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego – nothing to
arouse either like or dislike.’
Curley’s
wife on Curley’s hand – ‘He got it comin’ to him’
Chapter
5:
‘Now
I won’t get to tend the rabbits’ ‘He rocked himself back and forth in his
sorrow’ (like a child)
Curley’s
wife – ‘I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely.’
‘I
could made somethin’ of myself…Maybe I will yet.’
‘Coulda
been in the movies.’
‘I
don’t like Curley. He ain’t a nice
fella.’
On
Lennie ‘Jus’ like a big baby.’
‘Her
body flopped like a fish’
‘He
pawed up the hay.’
George
– ‘We can’t let ‘im get away. Why, the poor bastard’d starve…Maybe they’ll lock
‘im up an’ be nice to ‘im.’
‘Lennie
never done it in meanness.’
Candy
– ‘You god-damn tramp’ ‘you lousy tart’
Chapter
6:
George
tells Lennie about the dream, just before he shoots Lennie – ‘Lennie giggled
with happiness’
George
– ‘Ever’body gonna be nice to you. Ain’t gonna be no more trouble. Nobody gonna
hurt nobody nor steal from ‘em.’ (HEAVEN / UTOPIA)
On
killing Lennie – ‘I just done it.’
Slim
- ‘You hadda, George.’
By request here are a few exam questions you can practise with:
Part a)
Extract 1
In this passage, how does Steinbeck set the atmosphere in the opening? Refer closely to the passage in your answer.
A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the
hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it
has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before
reaching the narrow pool. On one side of the river the golden foothill
slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the
valley side the water is lined with trees—willows fresh and green with
every spring, carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the
winter’s flooding; and sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs
and branches that arch over the pool. On the sandy bank under the trees
the leaves lie deep and so crisp that a lizard makes a great skittering
if he runs among them. Rabbits come out of the brush to sit on the sand
in the evening, and the damp flats are covered with the night tracks of
’coons, and with the spread pads of dogs from the ranches, and with the
split-wedge tracks of deer that come to drink in the dark.
There is a path through the willows and among the sycamores, a path
beaten hard by boys coming down from the ranches to swim in the deep
pool, and beaten hard by tramps who come wearily down from the highway
in the evening to jungleup near water. In front of the low horizontal
limb of a giant sycamore there is an ash pile made by many fires; the
limb is worn smooth by men who have sat on it.
Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the
leaves. The shade climbed up the hills toward the top. On the sand banks
the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones. And then
from the direction of the state highway came the sound of footsteps on
crisp sycamore leaves. The rabbits hurried noiselessly for cover. A
stilted heron labored up into the air and pounded down river. For a
moment the place was lifeless, and then two men emerged from the path
and came into the opening by the green pool.
They had walked in single file down the path, and even in the open
one stayed behind the other. Both were dressed in denim trousers and in
denim coats with brass buttons. Both wore black, shapeless hats and both
carried tight blanket rolls slung over their shoulders. The first man
was small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp, strong
features. Every part of him was defined: small, strong hands, slender
arms, a thin and bony nose. Behind him walked his opposite, a huge man,
shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders;
and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags
his paws. His arms did not swing at his sides, but hung loosely.
Extract 2
How does the writer use details in this passage to present Curley?
At that moment a young man came into the bunkhouse; a thin young man with a brown
face, with brown eyes and a head of tightly curled hair. He wore a work glove on his left
hand, and like the boss, he wore high-heeled boots. ‘Seen my old man?’ he asked.
The swamper said: ‘He was here jus’ a minute ago, Curley. Went over to the cookhouse,
I think.’
‘I’ll try to catch him,’ said Curley. His eyes passed over the new men and he stopped. He
glanced coldly at George and then at Lennie. His arms gradually bent at the elbows and
his hands closed into fists. He stiffened and went into a slight crouch. His glance was at
once calculating and pugnacious. Lennie squirmed under the look and shifted his feet
nervously. Curley stepped gingerly close to him.
‘You the new guys the old man was waitin’ for?’
‘We just come in,’ said George.
‘Let the big guy talk.’
Lennie twisted with embarrassment.
George said: ‘S’pose he don’t want to talk?’
Curley lashed his body around. ‘By Christ, he’s gotta talk when he’s spoke to. What the
hell are you gettin’ into it for?’
‘We travel together,’ said George coldly.
‘Oh, so it’s that way.’
George was tense and motionless. ‘Yeah, it’s that way.’
Lennie was looking helplessly to George for instruction.
‘An’ you won’t let the big guy talk, is that it?’
‘He can talk if he want to tell you anything.’ He nodded slightly to Lennie.
‘We jus’ come in,’ said Lennie softly.
Curley stared levelly at him. ‘Well, nex’ time you answer when you’re spoke to.’ He
turned towards the door and walked out, and his elbows were still bent out a little.
Part b)
- In the rest of the novel how does Steinbeck use Crooks to present attitudes to black people at the time the novel is set?
- How does Steinbeck present attitudes to women in the society in which the novel is set?
- How does Steinbeck use the relationship of George and Lennie in the novel as a whole to convey ideas about America in the 1930s?
- How do you think Steinbeck uses the character of Candy in the novel as a whole to
convey important ideas about society at that time?
