Line #74 Literature/OfMiceAndMen


1	[[quoteright:255:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2014-10-21_at_11_58_41_am_1650.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:255:''"Tell me what you told me before... about them rabbits..."'']]
3	->''The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men\
4	Gang aft agley[[note]]Scots, "often go wrong" or "go oft awry"[[/note]],\
5	An' lea'e[[note]]Scots, "leave"[[/note]] us nowt[[note]]Scots, "nothing" or "naught"[[/note]] but grief an' pain\
6	For promis'd joy!''
7	-->-- '''Creator/RobertBurns''', "To a Mouse"
8
9	''Of Mice and Men'' is a 1937 novel, one of Creator/JohnSteinbeck's most famous, set during TheGreatDepression. It involves Lennie Small (a mentally-impaired GentleGiant) and George Milton, migrant workers who arrive on a California farm in the town of Soledad to work and hope to earn enough money to open a rabbit farm of their own, but... things go pretty wrong.
10
11	One of the most challenged books of the 20th and 21st centuries and a frequent target of censors, who criticized it for bad language, "promoting euthanasia", and being "anti-business". However, it remains very popular and is a widely used MediaNotes/SchoolStudyMedia. It has also had several film adaptations, including theatrical releases in 1939 and 1992 and made-for-TV versions in 1968 and 1981. The most famous adaptation is probably the 1939 film, which was directed by Lewis Milestone and starred Creator/BurgessMeredith as George and Creator/LonChaneyJr as Lennie, with a musical score by none other than Music/AaronCopland.
12
13	----
14	!!This novel contains examples of:
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16	%% Zero context examples have been commented out. Please provide context before uncommenting.
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18	* AccidentalMurder: At the climax of the book in chapter 5, Lennie kills Curley's wife. He didn't ''mean'' to; he was just trying to stop her from screaming and getting him into trouble, which is lampshaded when George finds the body and talks to Candy and Slim.
19	* TheAce: Slim, one of the work bosses who takes charge of George and Lennie; he's handsome, fair-minded, hard-working, loyal, reasonable and just all around a nice guy. Even when Lennie accidentally murders Curley's wife, he agrees that Lennie doesn't really deserve to die for it -- or, at least not die the sort of death Curley will give him.
20	* AdaptationExpansion:
21	** The 1992 film. It adds scenes not present in the book such as showing scenes where the men are working, Curley's wife flirting with George in the barn, and BookEnds where George is hitching a ride on a train.
22	** Steinbeck's own play version of the book, in which he expands on a few characters for the purposes of drama. (Note that the ''book itself'' may be performed as a play without changing a word, and it was written for this purpose, but a few dramatists wanted a longer version.)
23	* AmbiguousInnocence: Lennie has the mind of a very young child -- but, like a child, he can't properly control his strength, and he can lash out when frightened or angered, and as he's so very strong, that makes him incredibly dangerous.
24	* AndCallHimGeorge: Lennie is one of the TropeMakers. He loves cute and cuddly animals, only he loves them too much for their safety, due to his immense and uncontrollable strength.
25	* AnimalsHateHim:
26	** Crooks has a crooked back because a horse kicked him, and he never recovered from it.
27	** George seems to use this to lie about Lennie's mental deficiency to the boss by claiming that Lennie was also kicked by a horse [[ChildhoodBrainDamage in the head]].
28	* AssholeVictim: Curley gets his hand broken by Lennie after he tries to assert dominance over him and the bunkhouse. Everyone was clearly on Lennie's side since he had no interest or desire in fighting Curley, they were also more astounded by the act than sympathetic to Curley. Slim quickly blackmails Curley to lie about the source of his injury by threatening to tell everyone about how he broke his hand in a fight he started against a simpleton with herculean strength. Curley's wife had no sympathy for him either and revelled in finding out about the fight.
29	* TheAtoner: George; it's partly why he's so protective of Lennie. When they were younger, George made fun of Lennie's simplemindedness like everyone else until it caused an accident where Lennie nearly drowned.
30	* AttractivenessIsolation: With the central theme of loneliness to the story, Curley's Wife's loneliness is a result of her beauty. She admits she married Curley for the wrong reasons and that she only did it to spite her mother for denying her a chance at fame. She only wants someone to talk to, but everyone else is just so afraid of Curley's reaction that they consider her "jailbait" and more trouble than she's worth. Her name, or lack thereof, is also a reflection of this; she was objectified for her beauty, and men are too scared of Curley to even talk to her.
31	* BeigeProse: The writing in the book can get really overblown and haphazard at some points; many consider the film versions better for this reason.
32	* BewareTheNiceOnes: As is discussed during the story, Lennie doesn't have a mean bone in his body... but, if scared or angry, he can ''really'' hurt somebody without even meaning to.
33	* BigGuyLittleGuy: Lennie and George, respectively.
34	* BilingualBonus: Soledad, the name of the nearby town, means ''solitude''.
35	* BodyMotifs: Curley has a hand motif: His glove full of Vaseline, his status as a prize fighter, and how he's emasculated after Lennie crushes his hand.
36	* BoisterousWeakling: Curley.
37	-->'''Candy''': S'pose Curley jumps a big guy an' licks him. Ever'body says what a game guy Curley is. [[HeadsIWinTailsYouLose And s'pose he does the same thing and gets licked.]] Then ever'body says the big guy oughtta pick on somebody his own size, and maybe they gang up on the big guy.
38	* BookDumb: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] with George. He is cunning and intelligent at times, but was too poor to afford education growing up. He also points out once that he's only smart in comparison to Lennie.
39	* BookEnds: The story begins and ends with George and Lennie sitting by the pool by the river. At the beginning of the story, it's a sanctuary of hope and confidence. At the end, it's the place where George is forced to kill his best friend.
40	* BrainsAndBrawn: George and Lennie.
41	* BullyingTheDisabled: Curley's first scene is intimidating Lennie for being bigger than him and mocking his inteligence. He then shows no qualms about goading Lennie into a fight, believing him to be too stupid to be a skilled fighter. However, Lennie manages to grab his hand and promptly crushes it out of stress. When George manages to pry Lennie off of Curley he's broken pretty much every bone in his hand, but everyone agrees that Lennie had no choice and it was [[AssholeVictim bound to happen to Curley sooner or later]].
42	* BullyingADragon: Curley tries to pick a fight with Slim, and Slim ends up intimidating Curley into submission. He turns it around on Carlson, who just laughs at him. Then he turns on Lennie...
43	* CareerEndingInjury: Curley was a prized boxer until he goaded Lennie into a fight, where the latter broke every bone in his hand and presumably ended his career with minimal effort.
44	* TheCaretaker: George serves as this to Lennie; being smarter than Lennie, George comes up with all the plans for getting money, tries to keep Lennie out of trouble, "translates" for him to others, and generally does whatever it takes to keep Lennie alive. PlayedForDrama in that, ultimately, the best thing George can do for Lennie is shoot him in the head.
45	* CentralTheme:
46	** The crushed dreams of people who hlived through TheGreatDepression.
47	** The predatory nature of the human experience.
48	* ChekhovsGun: Carlson's Luger; he uses it to kill Candy's dog, and ultimately, George steals it and uses it to kill Lennie.
49	* ChildhoodBrainDamage: George tells the ranch owner that Lennie was [[AnimalsHateHim kicked in the head by a horse as a child]] to explain why he's mentally slow. Lennie has to ask George about it afterwards as he doesn't know whether it's true or not -- George then says it's not true.
50	* ChronicPetKiller: PlayedForDrama. Lennie loves small, fuzzy animals, but because he's too dumb to measure his strength properly, he ends up breaking their necks.
51	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Lennie is a deconstruction of this trope. As shown by his plight, such a character can't fend for themselves in a world that exists outside of their head; without George's care, he would starve to death or die of exposure or end up being killed by someone. At the same time, he's immensely problematic to deal with, because he can't keep up with what other people are saying, and he ignores various social rules; at best, he alienates people, at worst, he can hurt them when they unintentionally panic.
52	* CloudcuckoolandersMinder: George is one of the best examples out there. He makes sure Lennie stays safe, keeps him fed, explains his oddities to other people, and finally [[ShootTheDog sends him to the afterlife himself]] rather than let a lynch mob do the job.
53	* CompleteTheQuoteTitle: The title is taken from the Creator/RobertBurns poem "To a Mouse". The line where it occurs goes in full "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley[[note]] Often go awry [[/note]]." This foreshadows how the plans of the main characters will go unfulfilled due to tragic circumstances.
54	* ConspicuousGloves: Curley wears a glove full of Vaseline on one hand, supposedly because he's keeping that hand soft for his wife. This has no plot-relevant reason, but does make the theatrical adaptation easier to stage when his hand gets crushed.
55	* ConversationCasualty: At the end of the book, George is calmly talking to Lennie about the farm they've always dreamed of; he asks Lennie to close his eyes while talking, and George pulls out a gun and shoots him in the head. A non-villainous version, as George is doing this so that Lennie will die calm and happy.
56	* CrapsackWorld: The story is set in TheGreatDepression, which colors a lot of what goes on; times are tough, folks are mean, and there's no happy endings on the horizon for anyone.
57	* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Oh sure, Lennie is "dumb as hell" and pretty gentle to boot, but Curley's crushed hand will testify that he is ''not'' someone you provoke.
58	* ADeathInTheLimelight: Curley's wife unpacks all her secrets throughout Chapter 5, right before she gets killed.
59	* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: "Candy's been sharpening his pencil and sharpening and thinking."
60	* DespairEventHorizon: Any hope that George has reluctantly let Lennie and Candy instil in him of a better life is crushed by [[spoiler: him having to kill Lennie. He's just going do a job he doesn't really enjoy, to spend his money on drink and women now.]] And of course, when George admits this to Candy, he also reaches that horizon.
61	* DiedInIgnorance: [[spoiler:Overlaps with LetThemDieHappy. After Lennie has run away following his AccidentalMurder of [[AndCallHimGeorge Curley's wife]], George runs ahead of the [[TorchesAndPitchforks angry mob]] to find Lennie at the lake, the place where George told him to go if he got into trouble. George invokes this trope as he talks to Lennie about their dream of the farm, and he falsely reassures him that he is not in any trouble, and they can go get their farm right at that moment. George makes sure Lennie is staring at the lake and not at himself, so he can die with the [[TragicDream hope of a future that will never come]], rather than knowing his only friend is about to kill him.]]
62	* DoesNotKnowHisOwnStrength: Lennie, possibly the TropeCodifier. He kills mice just by petting them, kills a puppy by trying to play-hit it, and tries to calm Curley's Wife down by shaking her, but instead breaks her neck.
63	* DownerEnding: C'mon, you know you cried. Lennie dies and George is shattered. The farm was as much his dream as Lennie's, and he took pride and enjoyed taking care of his companion.
64	* DumbButDiligent: Lennie may not be the smartest, but his strength and obedience make him one of the best workers on the ranch, with Slim stating that he nearly worked several of his coworkers to death because they couldn't keep up with him.
65	* DumbMuscle: Lennie is a deconstruction of this trope, with almost all the death in the book caused by Lennie accidentally killing something due to his strength and not realizing this until it is too late.
66	* EveryoneHasStandards: While the workers agreed with Carson's idea to euthanize Candy's dog, they were fully against Curley's brawl against Lennie, since Lennie did nothing to earn Curley's ire and [[BullyingTheDisabled Curley was just looking for someone to take his anger out on]]. When Lennie broke Curley's hand, the workers were more supportive towards Lennie than they were to Curley since [[AssholeVictim he pretty much had it coming]].
67	* FalseRapeAccusation: George confides that the reason he and Lennie fled their last job/home is because a local girl accused him of raping her. Although she was understandably frightened when he stroked her dress and refused to let go when she started screaming, he never did anything more than that.
68	** Curley's wife threatens to have Crooks lynched with a false rape accusation when he tells her to leave him, Candy, and Lennie alone.
69	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
70	** The whole scene with Candy's dog foreshadows the end of the book.
71	** Chapter 5 has been nicknamed "The Foreshadowing Chapter" by some, as almost every event in it was foreshadowed at an earlier point in the novel.
72	* FloweryInsults: Exasperated over Lennie's fixation with petting mice and accidentally killing them (as well as picking up dead mice to pet), George gets creative with his insults:
73	-->'''George''': I wish I could put you in a cage with about a million mice and let them pet you.
74	* ForgottenFallenFriend: Curley used his wife's death to get murderous revenge on Lennie for breaking his hand. Their marriage was lifeless and Curley didn't take too long to assume the role as a CrusadingWidow.
75	* FromBadToWorse: Things weren't so good when Lennie unintentionally puts himself and George into trouble more than a few times, but when Curley's wife gets drawn into the picture, that's when things start going off the deep end.
76	* GentleGiant: Lennie is a huge NiceGuy and loves cuddly animals and soft things. The problem is that because of his inability to control his strength, he frequently kills pets when cuddling them.
77	* HardTruthAesop: It's right there in the title; some dreams can never come true.
78	* HaveAGayOldTime: Curley's wife is referred to as "jail bait" a number of times, but she is not underage; it is used to mean that the workers are worried that, if they crossed her, she would accuse them of rape and they would end up in prison.
79	* HeadsIWinTailsYouLose:
80	** According to Slim, this is what getting in fights with Curley is like. Because he's a trained boxer he often beats guys bigger than him, but if he picks a fight and loses, there's no glory in it for his opponent, and the guy who beat him often gets ostracized for beating up a small guy like Curley.
81	** Ultimately ''subverted'' when Curley picks a fight with Lennie. Lennie is (technically) a childlike GentleGiant with no stomach for fighting, and when he crushes Curley's hand it's in self-defense, and only because George told him to. Although Curley comes out of the fight physically disabled, possibly permanently, the sympathy of the workers rests solely with Lennie.
82	* HeterosexualLifePartners: It's very easy to mistakenly assume the two protagonists are brothers. George uses this to his advantage, telling everyone that Lennie is his cousin. Also, George and Lennie dream of owning their own piece of land.
83	* HisStoryRepeatsItself: Lennie has a history of getting in trouble for touching soft things.
84	* HopeSpot: When George, Lennie and Candy club together to raise the money to buy the ranch George talks about. It doesn't last.
85	* ICouldaBeenAContender: Curley's wife claims this during her MotiveRant to Lennie in chapter 5, claiming she could have gone away and become a star in Hollywood, but instead she's stuck out in the middle of nowhere as the bored and lonely TrophyWife of a preening, arrogant rooster of a ranch-owner.
86	* IJustWantToHaveFriends:
87	** Curley's wife is lonely and just wants to talk to the workers. They avoid her because they don't want to have trouble with her fiery-tempered bully of a husband.
88	** Crooks longs for companionship, although he's less open about it and masks his loneliness with surliness.
89	* INeverGotAnyLetters: Invoked as part of the Wife's MotiveRant in chapter 5; she wrote letters to the man who promised he could get her a role in Hollywood, but she never got any back, and she's convinced that her mother was stealing and hiding them.
90	* IronicName: Lennie is a giant of a man and his last name is Small. It's lampshaded (rather obviously) by Carlson, who finds this funny.
91	** A more subtle example is in George's name -- his surname is Milton, a reference to the author of ''Literature/ParadiseLost''.
92	* {{Jerkass}}: Curley, who's accusatory, belligerent, and arrogant personality gets on everyone's nerves.
93	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold
94	** Carlson is gruff and prickly, but not unlikeable.
95	** Crooks takes a great deal of joy in picking on Lennie. And then he's put on the receiving end of it by Curley's Wife who threatens to have him lynched. However, he seems like for the most part a normal, well-meaning, reasonable person.
96	** While George's frustration with Lennie is at times understandable, there are other times when he outright verbally abuses him. Despite this, he has always looked out for him and cares about him deeply. Their friendship is still deep and they remain loyal to each other, considering each other all they have in the world.
97	* LaserGuidedKarma: When Curley picks on big guys, namely, Lennie, Lennie breaks every bone in his hand. When George and Lennie are nice to Candy, he offers them three hundred dollars to make their dream a reality. That seems to be the way it works around here.
98	* TheLeader: It's established among the workers that Slim has the final say over all matters. Candy's dog gets shot because Slim agrees it's getting to old.
99	* LethallyStupid: Well, not so much stupid, but Lennie, because of his disability, can't really keep track of how much force he's using, and because he's so strong, that means he can break a man's neck like a toothpick without meaning to.
100	* LetsGetDangerous: Lennie again. A really nice guy, only to turn around and just break Curley's hand effortlessly. Be afraid.
101	* LiteraryAllusionTitle: From Creator/RobertBurns' "To a Mouse". [[GeniusBonus If you know the rest of the poem]], you won't be expecting a HappyEnding.
102	* LoserFriendPuzzlesOutsiders: Everyone wonders why such a normal guy like George hangs out with a big dumb brute like [[CloudCuckoolander Lennie.]] George claims (falsely) that they're cousins to give people an easy reason to understand.
103	* ManChild: To Lennie, the CutenessProximity may as well be a mile wide in all directions.
104	* MercyKill: George shoots Lennie in the back of the head to spare him the agony of being killed by Curley, locked in a cage, or whatever else may have happened.
105	** Candy is also forced to accept this applies to his dog for getting too old.
106	* MortonsFork:
107	** Slim blackmails Curley with this dilemma. Either live with a crushed hand and emasculated ego, or they'll tell everyone how he goaded a kind-hearted, mentally disabled, herculean simpleton into a brawl and lost, then got him and his carer fired, in order to salvage the remains of his dignity and masculinity.
108	** George is forced to kill Lennie after he unwittingly and accidentally kills Curley's Wife, as there were no positive outcomes for Lennie even if George didn’t kill him. George can either run away with Lennie to another state, until they run out of places to go or become the most wanted men in the USA; allow Lennie to be lynched by Curley; let Lennie go to prison where he might get corrupted by the other inmates; or have Lennie go to an asylum where he would likely be subjected to electroshock therapy.
109	* TheNapoleon: Curley, who's small in stature, [[PintsizedPowerhouse a trained boxer]], and willing to fight almost anyone at the drop of a hat.
110	* NeverTrustATitle: The book has no mice anywhere in the story. The title is a reference to the old proverb "the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry", referring to how a major running theme in the story is the dream of the protagonists to get enough money for a farm of their own—which, naturally, does not go as they'd hoped.
111	* NiceGuy: Slim, a worker at the ranch who is polite to everyone, including Curley's wife, and is the only person to console George after he kills Lennie.
112	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Lennie for ripping a woman's soft dress at the beginning, thus getting him accused of attempted rape and forcing him and George to leave behind their original jobs. [[spoiler: Then Lennie accidentally kills Curley's wife]].
113	* NoNameGiven: Neither Curley's wife nor [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep the Boss]] are ever named in the story.
114	* OneSteveLimit: Averted; two [[TheGhost unseen characters]] (Lennie's aunt and the madam of a local brothel) are both called Clara.
115	* PetTheDog: Curley's wife has a talk with Lennie, getting to bond with another human for the first time. It goes horribly wrong after that, however.
116	** Inverted with Lennie when he does this to a literal puppy; he [[spoiler: [[ShootTheDog ends up killing it]] due to his unchecked strength and even gets mad at it for dying so easily]].
117	* RegalRinglets: Curley's wife has hair "coiled like sausages".
118	* ResentfulGuardian: George once laments early on that if not for having to spend money on Lennie, and his moments of stupidity interfering with his plans, he could spend his spare cash at [[TheOldestProfession the whorehouse.]] Then again, this was said in a fit of rage that Lennie caused, and once Lennie is killed, George is not happy about the future that awaits him as a solitary migrant worker with no partner to make the hardships more bearable.
119	* RevengeBeforeReason: Curley tries to beat up Lennie for laughing at him but fails to remember Lennie's reputation for being the strongest man on the ranch despite his childlike intelligence.
120	* RuleOfSymbolism: Steinbeck's use of animals, particularly when describing Lennie in the narration. The animal metaphors are meant to symbolize Lennie's mental incapacities and simpleminded thinking.
121	* ShootTheDog: Literally! Roughly midway through the story, Carlson bullies Candy into letting him shoot the old man's worn-out old dog, simply because he thinks the dog is too old and too smelly. Candy later agrees that it was necessary and says that he should have been the one pulling the trigger. George also shoots Lennie at the story's end, to keep him from a more horrible death to a lynch mob.
122	* ShootTheShaggyDog: Steinbeck loves this trope. The whole story seems to be setting things up for George and Lennie and Candy to get that little farm of their own and live happily ever after... except, nope! Lennie commits manslaughter due to being LethallyStupid DumbMuscle, George has to shoot him, that means he and Candy can't afford the little block of land, and so George just goes back on the road on his lonesome.
123	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Despite George and Lennie's genuine and endearing friendship as well as a number of sympathetic characters, this book is set during the Great Depression, so one can expect it's pretty bleak, depressing, and cynical.
124	* SlidingScaleOfRealisticVersusFantastic: As realistic as modern literature can get.
125	* SmartJerkAndNiceMoron: Played with. George appears to be more gruff, severe and stern than mentally handicapped Lennie (who DoesNotKnowHisOwnStrength) who is a cheery, childlike person. However, he's doing this for Lennie's protection, since the latter is incapable of realizing the damage he causes. It also comes up in the BackStory when George tells a story about making Lennie do stupid stuff just for laughs, and how he learned AnAesop not to do that anymore.
126	* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Curley's wife is the only female character that physically appears in the book.
127	* SpellMyNameWithAnS: It's "Lennie" in the text, not "Lenny".
128	* SuddenlySpeaking: Free points in your essay for saying that the bit in the last chapter where Lennie visualizes his Aunt Clara telling him off is the first and only time we actually hear what the characters are thinking.
129	* SurvivalMantra: George's story about the farm with the rabbits is this for both him and Lennie. He's recited it so many times that Lennie has it memorized, but would rather hear it from George.
130	* TellMeAgain: Played for its usual purpose as {{Exposition}} in the first chapter, but justified since Lennie's mental disabilities affect his short-term memory.
131	* ThemeNaming: '''C'''urley, '''C'''arlson, '''C'''andy, '''C'''rooks... seems to be a lot of people around Soledad with names that start with '''C'''. Fittingly enough, the book is set in '''C'''alifornia.
132	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Frustrated by Lennie's tendency to inadvertently cause trouble due to his handicap, George likes to point out what a burden Lennie can be and how much easier and more pleasant his own life would be if he didn't have to look out for him.
133	* ThinSkinnedBully: Curley spends his days strutting around the ranch like a preening, arrogant rooster, challenging anyone who so much as looks at him wrong or he suspects of talking to his wife. [[spoiler: He hates Lennie at first glance because of his mental handicap and because he towers over Curley. When Slim and Carlson hurt his pride when they confirm that they haven't been with Curley's wife; Curley tries to reassert dominance over the ranchers by beating up Lennie, who was absent-mindedly laughing about the American dream, not laughing at Curley's expense like the others. After a brief beating from Curley, Lennie is convinced by George to fight back and he successfully breaks Curley's hand, which emasculates him and presumably ruins his boxing career.]]
134	* TragicDream: After Lennie accidentally kills Curley's wife, George concedes that their dream could never have been realized.
135	* UnusualEuphemism: "Pants rabbits." Apparently crab lice or some other type of parasite, also referred to as "greybacks" in the same scene.
136	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Curley's wife just wants to bond with Lennie and allows him to feel her hair. He ends up accidentally breaking her neck, which ultimately leads to his death as well.
137	* VagabondBuddies: George and Lennie are this, due to the time-period forcing people to generally go on the road to look for work and because Lennie's mental slowness prevents them from holding down long-term work.
138	* WhamEpisode: Chapter 5; Curley's wife interacts with Lennie, starts panicking, and he accidentally kills her as a result.
139	* WhosLaughingNow: Curley tries to fight Lennie when he mistakenly believes that Lennie was laughing at him; in reality Lennie was smiling about his, George's and Candy's dream home. The end result is Lennie breaking his hand while under George's command and needing to be restrained by both him and Slim.
140	* YankTheDogsChain: All George wants is to be able to buy a ranch so he won't have to be a migrant worker anymore, and he seems about to achieve that dream with Lennie and Candy's help. But then Lennie kills Curley's wife, and he acknowledges that he'll never be able to buy the ranch.
141
142	!!Tropes found in the 1939 film:
143
144	* ActionPrologue: Opens with George and Lennie running from [[TorchesAndPitchforks an angry mob]] from Weed and jumping a passing freight train. (And it all happens before the opening credits. This was one of the first Hollywood films, if not ''the'' first, to open this way.)
145	* AdaptationalNiceGuy:
146	** Candy doesn't use the N-word towards Crooks as he does in the book.
147	** Curly's wife also has her threat to have Crooks lynched on a false accusation removed. Overall, she's treated more sympathetically, although Steinbeck himself viewed her as a NiceGirl. She even gets a scene where she cries in the barn after Slim refuses to talk to her, and he expresses sympathy for her.
148	* AdaptationSpeciesChange: Lennie carries around a dead mouse in the book, but it's a bird in the film.
149	* AdaptedOut: The sequence of Lennie hallucinating his Aunt Clara is omitted, meaning she's only TheGhost in the film.
150	* NamedByTheAdaptation: Curly's wife is called Mae here.
151	* NoodleIncident: Zigzagged. The film opens with an ActionPrologue involving George and Lennie fleeing from an angry mob, though we don't know why. However, it's eventually explained when George has a conversation with Slim; there was a pretty girl at the ranch they worked on in Weed who got too close to Lennie whilst wearing her new red dress. Lennie thought the dress was pretty and tried to touch it -- she screamed and, in his usual panic response, Lennie just held on tighter, until eventually she managed to rip free and ran off. Though unspoken, the obvious implication is that she thought Lennie was going to rape her and so George had to help Lennie escape before the mob lynched him.
152	* ShirtlessScene: When George and Slim go to wash up, George takes his shirt off. Slim merely unbuttons his.

Context Literature / OfMiceAndMen