Identifying a quote from John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men that suggests these gentlemen's future is not difficult, as the two protagonists, George and Lennie, discuss their dreams for their future. Yet, somehow, we know that these dreams will not be realized. Steinbeck's novel takes place during the Great Depression and follows George and Lennie as these poor, itinerant ranch-hands seek a place they can call home while earning just enough to survive until the next payday. The sense of foreboding, however, emanates from their discussion early in the novel about Lennie's, a giant of a man with a mental handicap that limits his thought processes to that of a young child, inability to have a pet rabbit or mouse that he doesn't accidentally kill by virtue of his enormous physical strength. As Of Mice and Men progresses, however, Steinbeck's unseen narrator depicts the two men talking about their future -- about their dreams of someday having their own ranch or farm. It is still within that opening chapter that Steinbeck provides the following exchange that details that dream. George and Lennie are discussing the attribute that gives them a brighter outlook than the others they encounter as they travel the region searching for employment. In this exchange, Lennie is excitedly prompting George to recite their shared vision of a happy future:
“Go on now, George!”
“You got it by heart. You can do it yourself.”
“No, you. I forget some a’ the things. Tell about how it’s gonna be.”
“O.K. Someday—we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs and—”
“An’ live off the fatta the lan’,” Lennie shouted. “An’ have rabbits. Go on, George! Tell about what we’re gonna have in the garden and about the rabbits in the cages and about the rain in the winter and the stove, and how thick the cream is on the milk like you can hardly cut it. Tell about that, George.”
“Why’n’t you do it yourself? You know all of it.”
“No . . . . you tell it. It ain’t the same if I tell it. Go on . . . . George. How I get to tend the rabbits.”
“Well,” said George, “we’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens.
Lennie's infatuation with rabbits serves as a sort of premonition for the tragedy to come. It is that earlier discussion when George is reminding his larger, simple-minded friend of the latter's repeated accidental killing of any soft, furry animal he holds that suggests a dimmer future lies ahead. As the novel progresses towards its fateful conclusion, the reality of George and Lennie's existence blots out any suggestion of a brighter future. Lennie's infatuation with soft, furry animals is transferred to Curly's attractive wife, whom the giant accidentally kills, prompting George's mercy killing of his friend in the novel's final scene. In the end, Lennie is dead, and George is alone to ponder his existence without the only friend he has known.
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