These are characters that appear in John Steinbeck's famous novel Of Mice and Men as well as its many film adaptations.
George Milton
One of the main characters and Lennie's caretaker.- Anger Born of Worry: There's a pretty heavy implication that a lot of his verbal abuse towards Lennie is just as much concern that he's going to get himself into serious trouble one day as it is frustration. This unfortunately becomes prophetic what with what happens near the end of the book.
- The Atoner: Part of why he's so protective of Lennie is because, when they were younger, he made fun of Lennie's simplemindedness like everyone else until it caused an accident where Lennie nearly drowned.
- Believing Their Own Lies: After seeing Curley's wife's dead body and knowing who had done it, George reveals that deep down he never actually believed in the dream he talked about with Lennie and only lied to comfort the latter. But after a while, even George started to believe it and had hope...only for the reality of Lennie's intellectual disability to ruin things.
- Bullying the Disabled: In his backstory, he often makes Lennie do stupid things because he knows that the latter is too simple-minded to think for himself and about the consequences, even going so far as to beat Lennie physically. After Lennie nearly drowns from jumping into a river at George's behest, he becomes Lennie's carer as atonement.
- Bully Turned Buddy: He revealed to Slim that he worked for Lennie's aunt and when she died, Lennie followed him around. One day, George told him to jump into a lake as a joke but Lennie nearly drowned because he didn't know how to swim. After rescuing Lennie, George decided to become Lennie's carer and the two traveled from state to state looking for work.
- Butt-Monkey: Lennie's simplemindedness cost him every job he's tried to hold down so far and keeps him further from reaching his American dream of having his own land and farm with animals on it.
- Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: As much trouble Lennie unintentionally causes him, having Lennie around does make him feel special.
- The Caretaker: George serves as this to Lennie; being smarter than him, George comes up with all the plans for getting money, tries to keep him out of trouble, "translates" for him to others, and generally does whatever it takes to keep him alive. Played for Drama in that, ultimately, the best thing George can do for Lennie is to shoot him in the head.
- Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: He's always working to keep Lennie out of trouble.
- The Eeyore: He's become short-tempered, gloomy, and pessimistic due to all the trouble Lennie's put him through.
- Humble Goal: He dreams of buying his own land and cultivating it into a ranch with Lennie. After Lennie's death, George ultimately gave up on his dream and continued Walking the Earth alone.
- Meaningful Name: "George" means "farmer, earthworker" in Greek while "Milton" means "Mill town (a settlement with a mill)" in British. George is a migrant labor worker who wishes to quit his nomadic lifestyle and settle down somewhere with acres of land to cultivate as a ranch.
- No Place for Me There: It's implied that this is the reason why George refuses to carry on his dream of owning a ranch as without Lennie, it'll only be a place of perpetual sorrow and guilt after killing him even if was to spare the latter from a more painful death.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: One scene exclusively made for the 1992 film adaptation had George being pestered by Curley's wife for attention but he remains unresponsive, only aggravating her; given that most of the workers on the farm were well aware that, between Curley's jealously over her despite consistently ignoring her, and her own need for attention, humoring or acknowledging her in any way was practically begging for trouble.
- Parental Substitute: George treats Lennie like a brother and a son.
- Rage Breaking Point: He hits this after losing so many jobs due to Lennie's mistakes in the prologue, as the latter stating that he likes the beans with ketchup twice despite George stating that they don't have any, leading to George giving a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When Lennie offhandedly mentions wanting to eat ketchup with the beans, George immediately explodes with a scathing rant after his patience is finally tested."Well, we ain’t got any. Whatever we ain’t got, that’s what you want. God a’mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an’ work, an’ no trouble. No mess ' all, and when the end of the month come I coul' take my fifty bucks and go into town and get what‘ ever I want. Why, I could stay in a cat house night. I could eat any place I want, hotel or an place, and order any damn thing I could think of. An’ I could do all that every damn month. Get a gallon of whisky, or set in a pool room and play cards or shoot pool. An’ whatta I got?! I got you! You can’t keep a job and you lose me ever’ job I get. Jus’ keep me shovin’ all over the country all the time. An’ that ain’t the,' worst. You get in trouble. You do bad things and I got m get you out. You crazy son-of-a-bitch. You keep me in hot water all the time. Jus’ wanted to feel that girl’s dress - jus’ wanted to pet it like it was a mouse - Well, how the hell did she know you jus’ wanted to feel her dress? She jerks back and you hold on like it was a mouse. She yells and we got to hide in a irrigation ditch all day with guys lookin’ for us, and we got to sneak out in the dark and get outta the country. All the time somethin’ like that - all the time. I wisht I could put you in a cage with about a million mice an’ let you have fun."
- Resentful Guardian: 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 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.
- Walking the Earth: George's ultimate fate at the end of the novel implies (confirmed in the 1992 film adaptation) that he continues to travel around America as a solitary migrant worker.
Lennie Small
An intellectually disabled person who means well is particularly strong (perhaps too strong) and loves to tend to soft things, especially living ones. His inability to recognize the dangers of his actions often puts him and George in hot water.- Accidental Pervert: Deconstructed and Played for Drama in his previous job. Lennie only wanted to feel the soft fabric of the red dress worn by the lady, but being The Ditz with No Social Skills, he fails to account for how the lady would react to a grown man sneaking up on her and grabbing her dress, and when she did notice him, the woman understandably had a Freak Out. This also causes Lennie to freak out by clutching her dress tightly as she demanded him to let go, forcing George trying to make Lennie let go by hitting his head with a picket fence, only for the dress to be ripped that the woman ran throughout the field crying rape. With the danger of a lynch mob, George and Lennie were forced to hide in an irrigation ditch all day before running off to ride a cargo train for the first chance they get at nightfall.
- And Call Him "George": He loves to pet things but animals don't last long with him. Earlier in the story, he had a mouse and, quote, "pinched its head" so it'd stop biting him and we see how that went.
- Animal Motifs: Lennie is given animal similies to show how different he is from other people. Rabbits are often invoked by Lennie because they are his favorite animal. The focus of Lennie's half of the dream is to tend the rabbits on the farm and when he realizes he's in trouble; he believes George will punish him by not letting him tend to the rabbits. While waiting for George, he hallucinates a rabbit berating him for causing trouble again and telling him that George won't let him care for the rabbits. In the end, Lennie dies while imagining the rabbits on the farm. On the book cover, there is also a hare hiding from Lennie and George.
- Berserk Button: The normally passive Lennie becomes enraged when Crooks taunts him with a "what if" scenario of George leaving him behind or being injured or killed. Note that this is the second time he actually gets truly angry whereas the first time is the thought of stray cats attacking the potential rabbits he and George would own in the future.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: After Lennie accidentally kills Curley's Wife, George decides to kill Lennie after realizing there were no positive outcomes for him. Other than killing Lennie himself, George only has 4 options.
- Run away with Lennie again to another state as the cycle keeps going until they run out of places to go.
- Allow a terrified Lennie to be lynched by a sadistic Curley as George watches helplessly.
- Have Lennie committed to an asylum where he'll be subjected to inhumane treatments (like electroshock therapy) to treat his intellectual disability.
- Have Lennie legally tried for his unintended crime and get him legally executed (legal punishment regarding homicide was very severe in the 1930s), or if he's "lucky" he'll be imprisoned for life and either be corrupted by the other inmates, face plenty of abuse by them and the guards, and/or get killed by them on a whim. Or similarly worse, have Lennie be locked in a cage for the rest of his life and still be harassed and humiliated by onlookers.
- Beware the Nice Ones: As nice as a guy he can be, he's also very strong so getting him upset wouldn't be in anyone's best interest.
- Childhood Brain Damage: Invoked by George when meeting the ranch boss for the first time, stating that Lennie was kicked in the head by a horse as a child and he hadn't been the same ever since. Subverted as it wasn't true, of course, and even if it did, it would be implied that Lennie wouldn't have been too smart, to begin with, to stay away from the imaginary horse given his perchance for touching soft things.
- Chronic Pet Killer: Played for Drama. He's this because he 1) doesn't really know or understand better and 2), is very strong. In one conversation with George, we find out his Aunt Clara stopped giving him mice because he kept killing them, and, later, in the story, he plays with his new puppy a bit too hard, accidentally killing him.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: What Curley intends to inflict onto Lennie after the latter accidentally kills his wife (in reality, it's really to get back at him for breaking his hand, which in turn, destroyed his boxing career). George makes sure this trope is averted by giving Lennie a quick Mercy Kill.
- The Ditz: Due to being mentally disabled, he has a child-like state of mind and he can't think about the consequences of his actions.
- Does Not Know His Own Strength: He's a deconstruction of this. He means well but he doesn't know how to control his strength and is prone to petting things "too hard" as he gets lost in the pleasure and holds onto it tightly when he gets scared.
- Dumb, but Diligent: 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.
- Dumb Muscle: While he's not "dumb" in the usual sense, he's 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.
- Fatal Flaw:
- Lennie's intellectual disability leaves him with the mentality of a child who can barely take care of himself and is incapable of retaining information regarding what's socially appropriate and what's socially not, leading to him doing incredibly stupid things that prove life-threatening.
- His hobby of touching soft objects and small animals. Lennie takes real pleasure in touching and feeling soft objects, but due to him being as strong as an ox and being unable to control his great physical strength, he ends up touching things too hard which can end up damaging the object or killing the small animal.
- His tendency to clutch things tightly if scared. Whenever Lennie gets spooked, he'll grab onto whatever object he has in his hand real tightly, and due to his great strength and inability to control it, Lennie would end up damaging said object in his hand, if not outright destroying it.
- Forgot I Couldn't Swim: George told Slim a story of how George used to bully Lennie with his friends and, as a joke, told Lennie to jump into a lake. Lennie jumped without question and nearly drowned, forcing George and his friends to go rescue him. Lennie was apparently so grateful for the rescue that he forgot George was the one who told him to jump in the first place and from there, George took his responsibility as his carer more seriously.
- Gentle Giant: He's a huge Nice Guy 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.
- Hidden Depths: While he's implied to be intellectually disabled, he does have some understanding of some of the trouble he causes.
- His Own Worst Enemy: While the novel does have a villain in the form of Curley, it's Lennie's intellectual disability that causes most of the problems for him and George to achieve their dream of owning their own ranch.
- Idiot Houdini: Subverted. Lennie is mentally handicapped and despite being free of malicious intentions the novel shows that his mistakes always have consequences. Whether it'll be wanting to touch a random lady's dress or petting something too hard and destroying it. In the end, his Accidental Murder of Curley's Wife forces George to give Lennie a Mercy Kill less he suffers a Cruel and Unusual Death by a vengeful Curley, deal with a Fate Worse than Death regarding the judicial system and mental asylums of the time, or run away with George to another state until trouble eventually finds them again and can no longer hide anymore.
- Ironic Name: As Carlson humorously points out, Lennie is quite tall for someone with Small as a last name.
- Manchild: Deconstructed. As a result of his undiagnosed mental disability, Lennie has a child-like behavior, and his hobbies include petting small animals and soft fabrics, and his initial attraction towards Curley's Wife is akin to a Precocious Crush. Unfortunately for Lennie, he was born at a time when the age of eugenics was running rampant, living in a depression era where many folks weren't too kind, and could be trialed for crimes in court as an adult.
- Meaningful Name:
- Lennie means "lion's strength" in German, and Lennie is well-known for his Uninhibited Muscle Power.
- While not exactly "small", as humorously pointed out by Carlson, Lennie has an intellectual disability that causes him to have a child-like behavior with certain quirks that can attributed to small children. Also, he likes petting small animals and is often associated with animal similies to show how different he is from other people in the narrative.
- Mental Handicap, Moral Deficiency: Defied, Lennie is generally harmless and cannot be fully aware of the consequences of his actions. He accidentally kills animals, he unwittingly commits sexual assault by grabbing a woman's dress (he did this to only feel how soft it is and wouldn't let go due to panicking about her reaction), and he only breaks Curley's hand in self-defense and at George's command. After accidentally killing Curley's wife; Curley took advantage of the situation to rally a lynch mob against Lennie for breaking his hand, not because Lennie murdered his wife. George only kills him, in the end, to save him from Curley's lynch mob and to save him from being abused by the asylum.
- Nice Guy: He's a really nice guy and a lot of what he does is because he doesn't know (or understand) any better, not out of malice.
- No Social Skills: Played for Drama. He has very little common sense and doesn't understand social cues. A big example is that before the events of the novel, Lennie snuck up to a lady in a pretty red dress because he wanted to feel the soft fabric. It never registered in his mind that the lady would see it as an Attempted Rape, and things went downhill from there as he and George had to skip town. Also, going by George's angry rant at Lennie near the beginning of the novel, what happened in Weed isn't the first incident caused by Lennie's mishaps.
- Obliviously Evil: A famous example. Lennie means no harm, but his mental disability leaves him unable to understand his own strength, which results in him accidentally killing Curley's wife by breaking her neck in a panicked attempt to stop her screaming and being confused as to why she's not moving anymore.
- Relative Button: As seen in his conversation with Crooks, Lennie will not take kindly if someone threatens George or tries to joke about him being threatened.
- Rule of Symbolism: Steinbeck uses animal similes to show how different Lennie is from other human beings and how unique he is compared to the other characters.
- Simpleton Voice: The 1939 film depiction of Lennie is quite possibly the Trope Codifier.
- Tempting Fate: Right at the end, while Curley is looking to kill him, Lennie and George reunite in the same forest they were in where they promised to meet if things go badly (again). Lennie asks George, "Ain't you gonna give me hell?"
- Too Dumb to Live: If it wasn't for George being his caretaker Lennie wouldn't last long on his own, either getting abused or killed.
- Uninhibited Muscle Power: The source of his strength is never explained but he's capable of casually lifting bags of wheat so heavy that it would require two grown men, crushes Curley's hand beyond repair, and often kills small animals by accident.
- Unskilled, but Strong: He's the strongest man on the ranch and is mentally handicapped. Whenever he's stressed or panicking, he tightens his grip on whatever he's holding and this results in him breaking Curley's hand when the latter assaults him.
On the farm
Curley
A rather short man with an equally short temper, who is also the ranch owner's son.- Asshole Victim: Curley gets his hand broken by Lennie after he tries to assert dominance over him in the bunkhouse. Everyone was clearly on Lennie's side as 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 kind-hearted simpleton with herculean strength. Curley's wife had no sympathy for him either and reveled in finding out about the fight.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Even though he wasn't the one to pull the trigger, Lennie is still dead by the end of the book.
- Big Bad: The main antagonist of the novel.
- Body Motifs: Curley has a hand motif: His glove is full of Vaseline, his status as a prizefighter, and how he's emasculated after his hand gets broken by Lennie.
- Boisterous Weakling: As Candy put it best:"S'pose Curley jumps a big guy an' licks him. Ever'body says what a game guy Curley is. 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."
- The Bully: To the workers on the farm, who can't really do anything because he's the Boss' son. He especially pounces on Lennie because he's too nice to fight back. Unfortunately for Curly, he ignored how strong Lennie was, and pays for it.
- Bullying a Dragon: He tried this three times. He tried to pick on Slim and gets intimidated into submission. He does this to Carlson and gets laughed at. Then he turns on Lennie...and, well, we see how that went.
- Bullying the Disabled: Curley initially targeted Lennie because he was bigger than him but wasted no time in mocking his intelligence.
- Career-Ending Injury: After taking his anger out on Lennie, the latter grabs his hand during a fight and crushes it because Lennie tightens his grip whenever he's panicking or stressed. It's never said if he'll ever be able to fight again, although his injury was described as having all the bones in his hand broken. Considering the theme of melancholy and unobtainable dreams in the book, as well as the state of medical practice in the 1930s, the injury is most likely permanent and it karmically ruined his career.
- Classic Villain: Curley is prideful, hot-tempered, and Driven by Envy. His first introduction in the novel is already a tell-tale sign that Curley is bad news, and that it's a not matter of if he'll be a serious problem for George and Lennie down the road, but when he'll be a serious problem.
- Conspicuous Gloves: He 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.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Although his marriage with his wife is practically lifeless, he is extremely possessive of her to the point that if he caught anyone on the farm (except his father) interacting with his wife, whether they talk to her or not, he'll give them hell. In an exclusive scene from the 1992 film adaptation; he subtly threatens George by describing the last guy he caught talking with his wife who has also stated that he was "minding his own business" was brutally beaten by his hands and was immediately fired.
- Crusading Widower: Subverted, his planning to lynch Lennie comes more from still being sore about the latter breaking his hand in a fight than avenging his wife.
- Dirty Coward: Curley only gets into fights that guarantee his victory as his skills as a boxer will fulfill his every threat and he will always have his underdog reputation to fall back on if he loses. After being belittled by Slim and Carlson, he assaults Lennie because he believes he's an easy target due to his childlike intelligence. After Lennie catches his fist and begins to crush it, Curley is left blubbering on the floor and screaming for help from the workers.
- Domestic Abuser: He's said to be emotionally abusive towards his wife as he constantly isolates her and threatens anyone who talks to her.
- Driven by Envy: According to Candy, what drives Curley's initial hostility to Lennie along with a tendency to fight bigger guys is the deep-rooted jealousy of not being born as a "big guy".
- Establishing Character Moment: When he's first introduced to the protagonists, he specifically wants to hear Lennie respond to his question of asking them if they're the new workers, and then gets right up in his face while stating he should respond better next time in a low threatening tone.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: You'll be hard-pressed to find someone who actually likes Curley because Curley just bullies anyone weaker than himself and plays the victim whenever someone tries to fight back. They only tolerate him because he's the boss's son and fighting him is not worth the trouble.
- Green-Eyed Monster:
- According to Candy, the reason he's so bitter towards bigger guys and would constantly seek fights against them is that he wasn't born as one himself.
- For anybody who so much as looks at his wife the wrong way (see Crazy Jealous Guy above).
- Hair-Trigger Temper: It doesn't take much to rile Curley up into a brawl, and he immediately starts pounding into Lennie when he "thought" that Lennie was laughing at him nevermind that he believes that Lennie was intimidated by him in their first meeting and was already in a bad mood, to begin with.
- Hated by All: Everybody on the farm hates Curley because of his overaggressive behavior and violent outbursts to his own paranoia. Tellingly, the book actually gives the themes of royalty to Slim because he's widely respected by the other ranchers for being mild-mannered and holding himself to the same standard as everyone else, more or less treating Slim as the real boss of the farm.
- Hate Sink: If you have already read all the other tropes describing this guy, it should be pretty obvious that he is not meant to be a likable character in the slightest.
- It's All About Me: When he finds his dead wife, it's clear that he's using the situation to get revenge on Lennie for crippling him than for killing his wife. Even if avenging his dead wife was a factor in his intentions to lynch Lennie, Curley would've treated her death as akin to losing a possession than a loved one given his views of her as his Trophy Wife.
- Jerkass: He's accusatory, belligerent, and arrogant and his personality (and antics) gets on everyone's nerves.
- Kick the Dog: He regularly taunts and bullies anyone weaker than himself while also treating his wife as property.
- Lousy Lovers Are Losers: Heavily implied to be the case. Despite him bragging about his sexual prowess, his gorgeous wife is clearly unhappy and unsatisfied with their marriage and sometimes acts like The Tease to the ranch workers. Curley gets so overly anxious to control her that he punishes any man that she so much as talks to and tries to isolate her as much as possible.
- Morton's Fork: Slim blackmails Curley with this dilemma. Either live with a crushed hand and emasculated ego or they'll tell everyone how quickly he lost a fight to Lennie, a herculean man with childlike intelligence. For added measure, they'll tell everyone how Curley assaulted the terrified man and then had him fired for defending himself.
- The Napoleon: He's small in stature, a trained boxer, and willing to fight almost anyone at the drop of a hat.
- Never My Fault: He wants to kill Lennie upon finding his dead wife but it's a convenient excuse to get back at him for breaking his hand. However, he ignores the fact that it was his own fault for attacking Lennie in the first place despite knowing how strong he was on the job. Even if he wanted to avenge his wife, Curley would also ignore how his poor treatment of her might've played a factor in her death as well.
- No Sympathy: And for good reason. Nobody consoles Curley after his right hand gets crushed by Lennie, mainly because everyone was aware of how much of a Jerkass bully he is and as well as the fact he assaulted Lennie out of misplaced anger.
- Not Worth Killing: The only reason Curley hasn't been punished for his behavior by the farmworkers is that it's not worth the amount of trouble. Curley is a trained boxer with an underdog reputation and he's the son of the boss; if they assault Curley, the boss will fire them (and could have them arrested) for attacking his son. If they fight him in the ring, they'll either look like idiots for fighting a trained boxer or they'll be assaulted by Curley's sympathizers for attacking someone weaker than themselves.
- Playing the Victim Card: According to Slim, one reason Curley picks fights is to exploit people's sympathy. 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. Ultimately subverted when Curley picks a fight with Lennie. Lennie is a childlike giant 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.
- Plot-Irrelevant Villain: He's definitely a bad guy from the perspective of the main characters, but the ordeals with George and Lennie's inability to achieve their dream due to the latter's stupidity are unrelated to him. If anything, Curley is just one of the many people that causes the duo to escape the area due to every problem caused by Lennie's curiosity, which forces George to pull the trigger on the former after realizing the futility of it all.
- Prince Charmless: He's the boss's son and regularly uses his position to abuse the ranchers. Either goading them into fights or jealously abusing them for supposedly looking at his wife.
- Punny Name: He's described as having tightly curled hair and is named Curley. Curley is far from being treated as humorous, however.
- Red Right Hand: Curley wears a glove full of Vaseline on his left hand to keep it soft for his wife and he's a grade-A asshole. Then, his right hand gets crushed by a frightened Lennie after he tries to assault the latter, and later becomes hell-bent on murdering Lennie after finding his wife dead.
- Revenge Before Reason: He tries to beat up Lennie for laughing at him (he wasn't) but fails to remember Lennie's reputation for being the strongest man on the ranch, despite his childlike intelligence. Later on, he wants to painfully kill Lennie for killing his wife; but it's really to get back at Lennie for breaking his hand than anything else.
- Stay in the Kitchen: He expects his wife to always be inside their house. She doesn't listen, and supposedly spends as much time and distance out of the house or hides somewhere in the ranch that both the reader and Curley don't know about.
- Thin-Skinned Bully: Curley spends his time bullying the ranch workers and picking fights with them to assert dominance. According to Slim, one of two things will happen if someone actually takes him up on his challenge. If they lose, Curley will be lionized for defeating someone stronger than him while his opponent will be looked down on for picking a fight with a trained boxer; if the challenger wins, he'll be portrayed as the bully who knocked out someone weaker than himself and all the glory will be erased. When Curley fails to intimidate Slim and Carlson, he chooses Lennie for being the biggest guy on the ranch and for, seemingly, being the dumbest. When Curley starts assaulting Lennie, everyone jumps to his defense and tries to get Curley to stop because Lennie did nothing to deserve it. When Lennie breaks Curley's hand at George's urging, the sympathy of the cabin falls to Lennie and Slim is able to blackmail Curley into keeping quiet about the fight.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: While Curley was never a Nice Guy, Candy comments that he's become worse ever since he got married two weeks before the start of the story. Mainly due to him being jealously paranoid about the possibility of his wife cheating on him with the other farm workers.
- Underdogs Never Lose: Deconstructed. Because of his shorter height, people will always sympathize with him for being a brave underdog going against the bigger bully in the ring. As Candy and Slim put it, even if his opponent was able to beat him in the ring, there's no true victory for them as they'll be ostracized for actually beating up a shorter guy, which is something that Curley is aware of and uses that perception as an advantage. When he ends up losing against the larger, dumber, but kinder Lennie Smalls, nobody sympathizes with him because he was that much of an asshole.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Curley relies on people feeling sorry for him in fights. If his opponent loses, Curley will be lionized for defeating someone stronger than him while his opponent will be looked down on for picking a fight with a trained boxer; if the challenger wins, he'll be portrayed as the bully who knocked out someone weaker than himself and all the glory will be erased. Candy adds to this by suggesting that a mob of Curley supporters will actually assault the challenger for beating up Curley. This gambit actually fails in his fight with Lennie, as the latter clearly didn't want to fight, Curley had no reputation to fall back on because everyone hated him, and the other ranch workers were trying to get him to stop because they liked Lennie more than Curley. When Curley gets his hand broken (presumably beyond repair) everyone is consoling a guilt-ridden Lennie and Slim quickly blackmails Curley into keeping quiet.
Candy
An elderly farmworker with one hand- Department of Redundancy Department: 'Candy's been sharpening his pencil and sharpening and thinking.'
- Shoot the Dog: Literally! Roughly midway through the story, Carlson bullies him into letting him shoot his worn-out old dog, simply because the former thinks the dog is too old and too smelly. He later agrees that it was necessary but believes that he should have been the one pulling the trigger.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: A non-lethal or villainous version. He worries about his place on the farm or any farm because he's elderly and only has one hand.
Slim
One of the more experienced farmworkers. The narration dubs him the "prince of the farm".- The Ace: 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.
- Good Is Not Soft: He's one of the nicest guys in the setting that takes place in the Great Depression, but he's no pushover with Curley himself being intimidated when trying to get up in his face.
- Kneel Before Frodo: The narration gives him a theme of royalty, using similes to portray how the ranchers have more respect and admiration for him than Curley, the boss's son.
- Nice Guy: One of the nicest and most reasonable characters in the book.
- The Reliable One: Enough to where George was able to confide with him the truth of what really happened in weed and Lennie's disability.
Carlson
A rotund man who's a rough, but well-meaning farmworker.- Everyone Has Standards: He selfishly pressured Candy into euthanizing his dog for being too old and smelly. When Curley starts beating up Lennie, Carlson jumps to Lennie's aid and agrees to keep quiet about the actual source of Curley's injury.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Though he didn't go about it in the nicest or sympathetic way, he did have a point that putting down Candy's dog is the most reasonable thing to do, as the dog was elderly and toothless. Later on, Candy agrees that the dog needs to be put down but says that Carlson shouldn't have been the one to pull the trigger.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's prickly, gruff, and a bit mean but he's not wholly unlikable, as, somehow, he gets along with the other characters. He also sides with Lennie when Curley goads him into a fight since Lennie doesn't want to fight and is tearfully guilty about having to defend himself.
- No Sympathy: When he puts down Candy's dog, he's not all that sympathetic. His convincing Candy to let him euthanize the dog is really him bullying the latter into it, nor is he understanding towards Candy's feelings. His final lines in the story is him failing to comprehend George's grief about having to kill his best friend.
Curley's Wife
As the title would suggest, she's Curley's wife.- Accidental Murder: How she dies. At the climax of the book in chapter 5, Lennie kills her. 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.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: She is far more sympathetic in the 1992 film. For example, the scene where she threatens to have Crooks lynched is omitted.
- Asshole Victim: She's not a nice person, not that she deserved to die.
- Attention Whore: She's lonely but it's no doubt that a lot of what she does gets her attention. Unfortunately, when she does get attention, it's not the kind she'd like, as seen in the Too Dumb to Live entry below.
- Attractiveness Isolation: With the central theme of loneliness in 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" because they see her as more trouble than she's worth. Her name is also a reflection of this, she was objectified for her beauty and men are too scared of Curley to even talk to her.
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: Curley used her death as an excuse 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 of a Crusading Widower.
- Foreshadowing: How she dies near the end. George mentions to Slim at one point that the reason why they came to work on the ranch, to begin with, is due to Lennie wanting to "feel the dress" worn by a woman during their last job, leading her to scream when she notices him which also caused Lennie to clutched onto her dress from being startled so suddenly, leading her to cry rape to the authorities and forcing George and Lennie to escape the area. It becomes a bigger foreshadowing in the 1992 film showing the color of the woman's dress being red, the same color that Curley's wife is wearing.
- Have a Gay Old Time: She's 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 she would accuse them of rape if they crossed her, and end up in prison.
- I Coulda Been a Contender!: She claims this during her Motive Rant 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 Trophy Wife of a preening, arrogant rooster of a ranch-owner.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Or, at least, someone to talk to. She only wants to talk to the workers but they avoid her because they don't want to have trouble with her fiery-tempered bully of a husband or getting accused of rape if they upset her.
- I Never Got Any Letters: Invoked as part of her Motive Rant 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.
- Kick the Dog: In Chapter 4, she calls out Candy for his old age and threatens to lynch Crooks, which kills all the good feelings they had before.
- Lady in Red: In the scene where she invites Lennie to pet her hair and dies, she's wearing a red dress with matching shoes.
- Named by the Adaptation: In the 1939 film adaptation, she's called "Mae."
- No Name Given: She's not named, just called "Curley's Wife". According to Steinbeck on why she doesn't have a name, she's, quote, "not a person, but a symbol-a foil and a danger to Lennie."
- Pet the Dog: She was nothing less but kind and courteous to Lennie in their interactions, that is, until she let him stroke her hair.
- Too Dumb to Live: She's seen firsthand that Lennie is a simple-minded but powerful fool who was capable of crushing her husband's hand, and that he has problems controlling his strength because he's dumb — after all, he'd just killed his new puppy by accident when she came in. Yet she's still stupid enough to invite Lennie to start stroking her hair and then panics when he won't stop. When he grabs her and tells her to stop screaming, she keeps on screaming, and he ends up accidentally breaking her neck in trying to make her stop.
- Trophy Wife: It's rather obvious Curley married her more because of appearances (she's described as lovely) than love.
- The Vamp: Played with. On one hand, she does flirt with the men on the farm but it's mostly so she can have someone to talk to and, other than a couple of Kick the Dog moments, she's not evil or anything but, on the other end, the other men on the farm don't want anything to do with her for a reason.
Crooks
A black farm worker, who keeps to himself.- Animals Hate Him: He has a crooked back because a horse kicked him before, and he never recovered from it.
- Hidden Depths: Crooks is an intelligent and well-read man.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: He would like to have friends but because of his skin color and being the only (mentioned) black worker on the farm, he's isolated and masks this with grumpiness.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He 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's generally a normal, well-meaning, reasonable person.
- Meaningful Name: His name is Crooks, and he has a crooked back.
- Token Minority: The only (mentioned) African American who works on the farm.
Other
Aunt Clara
Lennie's aunt, who raised him. Lennie describes her as a "fat little old lady, with thick bull's eyeglasses and a huge gingham apron".- Chronic Pet Killer: Not her, certainly, but her nephew, Lennie, is and this trope is why she stopped giving him mice. She did give him a rubber mouse, which he wanted nothing to do with (it was "no good to pet")
- Nephewism: We don't know about what happened to Lennie's parents but we do know she's taken care of him since he was a baby until she passed away.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: She's mentioned to be a very kind old woman who raised Lenny despite his mental disability, but she acts uncharacteristically stern and scolding Lennie near the end of the book. It's justified, however, as she was never physically there and it was just a vision of Lennie that personifies his guilt for burdening George.
- Posthumous Character: She's passed away before the story starts and the only time she makes an appearance is when Lennie sees a vision of her scolding him in his voice.
