Quotes

Question 1

Crooks - segregation

Answer 1

Lives in a ‘little shed that leaned off the wall of the barn’
Slim and George’s conversation ‘They let him [Crooks] come in that night’

Question 2

Crooks’ life

Answer 2

Crooks reveals that the white kids would come to play at his place but his ‘ol’ man didn’t like that’
‘there’s jus’ one family in Soledad’

Question 3

Crooks - rejects companionship

Answer 3

-when Lennie comes into his room, he ‘stiffened and a scowl came on his face. His hand came out from under his shirt’
When Candy comes into his room, he says ‘if ever’body’s comin’ in, you might just as well’

Question 4

Crooks - effects of loneliness

Answer 4

-He tells Lennie, ‘a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick’

Question 5

Curley’s wife – treatment on the ranch

Answer 5

when George first sees her, he calls her a ‘tramp’ and ‘jailbait’
She says to Lennie, ‘You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad’

Question 6

Curley’s wife – seeks attention

Answer 6

‘She had full rouged lips’, ‘heavily made up’, ‘her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters’, ‘she wore a cotton house dress and red mules’
called a ‘jailbait’

Question 7

Candy - old and handicapped

Answer 7

‘When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me. But they won’t do nothing like that. I won’t have no place to go, an’ I can’t get no more jobs’ (tells G+L)

Question 8

Candy’s dog

Answer 8

’pale, blind old eyes’, ‘struggled lamely’
Candy says, ‘God, he was a good sheep dog when he was younger’
‘I been around him so much I never notice how he stinks’

Question 9

George description

Answer 9

‘small and quick’ with ‘sharp, strong features’
‘sharply’ and ‘gently’

Question 10

Lennie description

Answer 10

‘his [George’s] opposite, a huge man, shapeless of face’
-moves his feet ‘the way a bear drags his paws’
‘snorting into the water like a horse’
‘dabbled’ and ‘timidly’

Question 11

George and Lennie’s dynamic

Answer 11

‘both wore shapeless hats and both carried tight blanket rolls slung over their shoulders’
’even in the open one [Lennie] stayed behind the other [George]’
Lennie ‘imitates George exactly’

Question 12

George and Lennie’s symbiotic relationship

Answer 12

‘I got you to look after me, and you go me to look after you’

Question 13

Lennie’s liability

Answer 13

‘You can’t keep a job and you lose me ever’ job I get’
In the fight: ’Lennie looked helplessly at George’
Compared to Candy’s dog - ’he [the dog] ain’t no good to you [Candy]’ and ‘That dog ain’t no good to himself’ (Carlson says to Candy)

Question 14

George and Slim

Answer 14

‘You wouldn’ tell?…No, ‘course you wouldn’
’I can see Lennie ain’t a bit mean’
‘You hadda, George. I swear you hadda’

Question 15

Impossibility of the dream

Answer 15

In the beginning, when they talk about their dreams, George says they will have ‘Red and blue and green rabbits, Lennie. Millions of ‘em’
’This thing they had never really believed in was coming true.’
Crooks says, ‘An’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it.’
’a whore house or a blackjack game took what it takes’

Question 16

Impossibility of the dream - Eden

Answer 16

the giant sycamore whose low branch is ‘worn smooth by men who have sat on it’
Crooks scoffs: ‘Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of land’ (tells Lennie)

Question 17

Escapism

Answer 17

Workers had ’Western magazines ranch men love to read and scoff at and secretly believe’
’a whore house or a blackjack game took what it takes’

Question 18

Return to childhood innocence

Answer 18

Crooks, ‘I remember when I was a little kid on my old man’s chicken ranch. Had two brothers. They was always near me, always there’
George, ‘I can build a smoke house like the one gran’pa had’

Question 19

Hope for a dream

Answer 19

’Bill and me worked in that patch of field peas. Run cultivators, both of us’

Question 20

Curley’s wife’s dream

Answer 20

she had ‘full, rouged lips’, her hair ‘in little rolled clusters’
’Coulda been in the moves, an’ had nice clothes’ ,‘coulda sat in them big hotels’ and ‘had pitchers took of me’
‘I tell you I ain’t used to livin’ like this. I coulda made something’ of myself.’ She said darkly. ‘Maybe I will yet.’
’because this guy says I was a natural’

Question 21

George and Lennie’s dream

Answer 21

‘We’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens.’
’live off the fatta the lan’
’we’d have our own place where we belonged and not sleep in no bunk house’

Question 22

Spread of the dream - Candy

Answer 22

Candy offers 300 dollars
’They looked at one another, amazed. This thing they had never really believed in was coming true.’

Question 23

Spread of the dream - Crooks

Answer 23

‘If you…guys would want a hand to work for nothing’
‘Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you’
‘You got no rights comin’ in a colored mans room.’ (to Curley’s wife)

Question 24

Death of the dream - Crooks

Answer 24

Crooks ‘reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego’
he returns to loneliness, ‘rubbing his back’

Question 25

Death of the dream - CW’s death

Answer 25

‘the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face’
she was actually ‘sweet and young’

Question 26

Death of the dream - Candy’s anguish

Answer 26

‘Ever’body knowed you’d mess things up’
Steinbeck reminds readers of his ‘wrist stump’

Question 27

Death of the dream - Lennie’s death

Answer 27

’Ain’t gonna be no more trouble’

Question 28

Transient lifestyle

Answer 28

Candy says ‘last guy that had this bed was a blacksmith’

Question 29

Effect of this lifestyle

Answer 29

’Take a real smart guy and he ain’t hardly ever a nice fella’
-George says to Slim, ‘I seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain’t no good. They don’t have no fun. After a long time they get mean. They get wantin’ to fight all the time.’
Carlson says ‘shoot him right in the back of the head’

Question 30

Absence of love

Answer 30

the boss is suspicious of George, and accuses him, ‘what stake you got in this guy? You takin’ his pay away from him?’

Question 31

The hierarchy of power

Answer 31

First time Curley meets G+L, he tells them ‘nex’ time you answer when you’re spoke to’

Question 32

The boss

Answer 32

’he wore high-heeled boots and spurs to prove he was not a labouring man’
‘little stocky man’
’I wrote Murray and Ready I wanted two men this morning’
‘After he questions G+L, he says ‘don’t try to put nothing over, ‘cause you can’t get away with nothing.’

Question 33

Curley’s power

Answer 33

Curley ‘wore a work glove on his left hand’ – ‘he’s keepin’ that hand soft for his wife’
‘wore high-heeled boots’
Candy says, he ‘won’t ever get canned’

Question 34

Curley’s insecurity

Answer 34

when he first meets G+L, his ‘hands closed to fists’ and he went ‘into a slight crouch’
his glance was ‘calculating’
When he sees his dead wife, he ‘came suddenly to life’

Question 35

How others view Curley

Answer 35

Described by George as a ‘mean little guy’
Candy says, ‘seems like Curley is cockier’n even since he got married’
‘handy’

Question 36

Slim

Answer 36

‘the prince of the ranch’, ‘royalty’, ‘ageless’
‘a gravity in his manner and so quiet so profound that all talk stopped when he spoke’
‘God-like’
‘master craftsmen’
George ‘taking on the tone of confession’
‘I can see Lennie ain’t a bit mean’

Question 37

Slim vs Curley

Answer 37

Curley’s ‘glove fulla’ vaseline’
Slim’s hands are ‘large and lean’ and ‘delicate’
Curley is the Boss’s son
Slim is the ‘prince of the ranch’

Question 38

Crook’s resilience

Answer 38

First line – ‘Yougotnorightto comeinmyroom.’
he has a ‘tattered dictionary’ and ‘a mauled copy of the California civil code for 1905’
’he has accumulated more possessions than he could carry on his back’

Question 39

Curley’s wife

Answer 39

Other male ranch workers call her a ‘tart’ or ‘tramp’
George scolds Lennie when he says she is pretty: ‘I never seen no piece of jailbait worse than her. You leave her be’

Question 40

Aunt Clara

Answer 40

‘she wore a huge gingham apron with pockets, and she was starched and clean’
says, ’He coulda had such a good time if it wasn’t for you’

Question 41

Lennie - compared to animals

Answer 41

‘snorting into the water like a horse’
when Curley fights him: Lennie ‘bleated with terror’

Question 42

Rabbits

Answer 42

Giant rabbit repeats ‘he gonna leave ya’
In the end, G+L still chant ‘tend the rabbits’

Question 43

Sound conveying atmosphere

Answer 43

Carlson shooting C’s dog - ‘the silence came into the room. And the silence lasted.’
After killing CW - ’for the first time Lennie became conscious of the outside’
The end - ‘the shouts of men sounded again, this time much closer than before’

Question 44

The cyclical structure

Answer 44

’the deep green pool of the Salinas River was still in the late afternoon’