Pedroza 1

Alba Pedroza

Mr. Goodsell

Freshman English S4

20 June 2018

OMM Essay

“To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time”

(Bernstein). Lennie had a dream. He also had a plan that was leaded by a mistake, which resulted

in his murder. An individual can have plans but will never know how things will play out. There

is only so much a person can control and plans can change due to other’s actions. This can be

seen in both Mice of Men and To a Mouse.

Lennie planned to raise enough money to buy a patch of land. Where they will have a

small farm with a vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch. However, later on is killed by George his

best friend. “He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down

again” (pg.52). Lennie had killed Curly’s wife unintentionally and George was only making it

easier for him because Curly and Candy were going to make him suffer. George did not look at it

as a bad thing and was only protecting him.

Both Steinbeck and Burns allude to the tenuity of preservation, and all of life’s elements

are ephemeral. In To a Mouse, the narrator unintentionally destroys the home of the mouse,

leaving her exposed to the brutalities of the coming winter months “thy wee-bit housie, too, in

ruin! It’s silly wa’s and win’s are strewin!” (lines 19-20). Where the mouse had believed to be

prepared, she is now unable to defend herself, with little hope in sight. The mouse must now

survive in a life of harsh struggle; a very different outcome to what she had planned. George and
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Lennie acts as the mouse, a creature of feeble means to take care of itself, while George is the

home that protects the mouse. George understands that while he can go one without Lennie,

Lennie would not be able to survive without him, just as the situation in Burns’ poem. This

conflicts comes into play when George must decide what to do with his friend after Lennie’s

incident with Curley’s wife. “You ain’t gonna leave me, are ya George? I know you ain’t.”

Lennie automatically asks for help from George, who is unable to pick up the pieces as he has

done previously.

Both To a Mouse and Mice of Men, motif of vulnerability is used to describe the

characters. Lennie’s fragility is ironic, as it contradicts his physical strength, while the mouse’s

appearance denotes diaphaneity. In these cases, Steinbeck and Burns show the likeness between

the powerful man and such a small creatures of the same earth and share similar weaknesses.

These weaknesses ultimately define their fate, and the path of life that they will endure. In

Burn’s poem, the narrator determines that life rarely goes according to the desired path “the best

laid schemes o’mice an ‘men gang aft agley” (lines 38-39), a concept that Steinbeck utilizes in

showing the death of the American Dream. George and Lennie of mice and Men form an

imaginary utopia, in which they synthesize their future. When in a trying situation, this false

comfort restores their hope and encourages them to power onward.

Throughout the poem, Burns talks about the impossibility of a perfect dream, for things

almost never happen the way they are expected. Burns went even further, saying that those who

are expected. Burns went even further, saying that those who are only touched by the present are

blessed, while those who can remember the dreadful past and fear the future will be left with

nothing but grief. This theme of having an improbable, perfect dream and the uncertain, fearful
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future that comes with it are present throughout the entire novel and is seen in every main

character, especially in George, Lennie, and Candy.

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Work Cited

Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. November 1785. Print.

Burns, R. To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest With the Plough, November, 1785. Print