Sheehy English 11

Having read the first chapter of Of Mice and Men and discussed it through both the reading of each other’s blogs and an almost circle discussion, we move to chapter two (pp. 17-37). Before I tell you what I’d like you to do to respond to chapter 2, I’d like to remind you of two of our literary focuses through this book.

The first is characterization, in particular, the indirect characterization Steinbeck uses to portray each of the men (and the one woman) in the story. If I were to demand that you describe George’s characteristics to me, most of you would support your points or cite what George does and what he says. That’s indirect characterization. Steinbeck uses the dialogue of these characters to convey what they are like. They each speak uniquely, and if we were to remove the “George said” comments from it entirely, my guess is that we’d be able to follow the dialogue fairly well. Note how much you learn about characters from the conversations that surround them.

The second literary focus is on character foils - those characters who contrast one another. The most obvious one is George and Lennie (George is smart, Lennie is slow; George is small and quick, Lennie is large and strong), but more come. Can you identify others as they arrive?

Now, as to responding to chapter two — I had you search out at least four important passages as you read, and for this article I’d like you to share those passages and comment on them. I’ll list a series of questions below here to help you know what to say, but ultimately I’m looking for you to comment in 300 words what your reaction to these passages is.

• What is interesting about these passages?
• What makes these passages stand out?
• What has happened here that seems significant?
• What are the likely consequences on the story of the passage you’ve read? (That is, predict.)
• What questions does the passage raise?
• Can you identify in particular with the event or theme that the passage addresses?
• What is your reaction (emotional or otherwise) to what you’ve read here?

Put page numbers by all of your passages so others in the class can find them in their books easily.

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