Section 5 - Overview
English Lit: Edexcel IGCSE Of Mice & Men, topic 2.5.2
Section 5 Overview
Section 5 shows how Lennie is unable to control his strength. Although he doesn't mean it, he causes tragedy. Lennie's actions mean George, Lennie and Candy can never have their dream farm.
Lennie's strength
- When playing with his puppy, Lennie shows that he is not capable of controlling his own strength.
- When Lennie kills Curley's wife, we see that he has again innocently caused a tragedy.
- But this time it is much more serious than any trouble he has gotten himself into in the past.
Curley's wife's vulnerability
- We start to see a more vulnerable side to Curley’s Wife.
- She is just as lonely and isolated as everyone else, and is suffering from a lack of affection from her husband.
- Although she has been cruel and unkind to Lennie, Crooks and Candy in the past, the reader now starts to understand the trauma she herself has suffered.
- She too had her own American Dream, to be a Hollywood star, but her plans have failed.
The death of the dream farm
- When George and Candy find the body, they know that it means the death of their dream.
- Although it is questionable whether the dream was ever at all realistic, it gave them hope.
- George is doomed to live the life of a lonely ranch worker.
George taking Carlson's gun
- It is significant that George has taken Carlson’s gun.
- This is the gun that was used to kill Candy’s dog, an act of mercy: being cruel to be kind.
- What happens in the next section is a clear parallel of this.
Test yourself on Section 5 - Overview
What is Lennie incapable of controlling?
What was Curley's wife's American Dream?