Lennie: The Dangers of His Strength

Continuing on from my first blog, George and Lennie - Roles in the story and foreshadowing, I talked about how George was always looking out for Lennie, like that of a parent or guardian. Today, I'll be extending on that idea, but I'm going to be focusing on Lennie a little more.

We can recall in Part 2 that George warns Lennie not to look at Curley's wife or to fight with Curley himself. In Part 3, Curley, however, starts to antagonize Lennie, as he starts "... slugging him in the face" (63). Lennie is like a child; he is naive, as shown by his obvious attraction to Curley's wife, and he is intimidated easily: "Lennie's hands remained at his sides; he was too frightened to defend himself ... Lennie covered his face with huge paws and bleated with terror" (63). Like a child, he also lacks self-control: "The next minute Curley was flopping like a fish on a line, and his closed fist was lost in Lennie's big hand. George ran down the room. 'Leggo of him, Lennie. Let go.' But Lennie watched in terror the flopping little man whom he held. Blood ran down Lennie's face, one of his eyes was cut and closed" (63). Lennie couldn't control himself; he didn't want to hurt Curley, but out of fear, he went by his instincts and crushed the man. It's understandable; all of us have done things we regret in the midst of confusion. However, Lennie lacks self-control over his strength; he doesn't know his own strength and could possibly kill someone. If someone walks in on him doing something he's not supposed to be doing, such as playing with the young puppies, he could accidentally hurt out of fear.

The fight also reminded me of George's description of the incident in Weed, where Lennie kept on holding onto the girl's red dress. According to George, Lennie did this "'...'cause that's the only thing he can think to do... Lennie's so scared all he can think to do is jus' hold on'" (41). Here, Lennie could only think of holding onto Curley's hand, crushing it in the process. Each time he does something like out of fear, the situation just keeps getting worse and worse. If Lennie does this one more time, something drastic could happen, perhaps even resulting in a death.

Though Lennie is depicted as a childish "gentle giant", the fact he lacks self-control over his strength during a moment of fear is exceptionally dangerous. Being halfway through the book, something plot-changing is bound to happen soon --- maybe or maybe not involving Lennie.

~ Kate_ChromtheChrommander