Animal Imagery in of Mice and Men

Animal Imagery in Of Mice and Men

Animal imagery, the use of animals to describe or represent people, places, and ideas, is clearly shown throughout the novel Of Mice and Men. For instance, the use of people is shown mostly through Lennie, place is shown by the safe place that George tells Lennie to return to in case of trouble, and ideas are shown through the experience of fear and death. Even the title itself holds imagery! Steinbeck’s title, Of Mice and Men, comes from a line of a poem written by Robert Burns, “the best-laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.” Therefore, John Steinbeck makes extensive use of animal imagery throughout Of Mice and Men by emphasizing Lennie’s unlikely dream, foreshadowing key conflicts, and the developing of several characters.

One of the many representations to show animal imagery is through Lennie’s unlikely dream of a safe place. The novel does this through rabbits, visions, and a safe place. Steinbeck uses rabbits as a symbol of safety. For example, at the end right before George shoots Lennie, George say the famous words,”livin’ offa the fatta the lan-an’ rabbits” (Bloom 38) as he tries to calm Lennie down and bring him to a peaceful safe place from the troublesome state which he was in. The representation of “Lennie’s yearning for the rabbits and for all soft living things symbolizes the yearning all men have for warm, living contact” (Meyer 1). The animal, a rabbit, plays a large symbolic part in this novel as it keeps being repeated again and again throughout the story. When “George talks about Lennie’s attraction to mice, there it becomes evident that the symbolism of rabbits will come to the same end- crushed by Lennie’s simple, blundering strength” (Lisca 135). After Lennie has gotten himself into trouble once again, he rushes to the place George told him to go to in the beginning of the novel. While there, Lennie hallucinates two visions, one of a rabbit and the other of his Aunt Clara. The enormous rabbit yells at Lennie, stating he ruined his chances of his dream, and that he might as well go live in a cave and leave George alone. The imaginary rabbit represents Lennie’s darkest fears being personified right in front of him (Bloom 56). Ironically, George shows up for the rescue once again and tells the story, perhaps the most famous repeated passage of the book (Bloom 21). Listening to the story being told, the reader notices that it has changed once again, showing that a little bit of the story each time it is told just becomes a story rather than a dream. Every time, George reassures Lennie of their dreams of owning their own place and tending the rabbits (Meyer 3). George ironically does this again right before he shoots Lennie. He tells the story of rabbits once more not to represent a safe place, a dream, but a peaceful place for Lennie and the realization that it will never come true for