Of Mice And Men Chapter 5 Summary | Junior Cycle English

Of Mice and Men Chapter 5 Summary: Where we are

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Sunday afternoon, in the barn. The men are outside playing horseshoes. Lennie is alone with the puppy Slim gave him, and he has already killed it. Within a few pages the dream is finished and so is Curley’s wife.

What happens

Lennie sits in the hay with the dead puppy in front of him. He has been handling it too roughly and it has died. He is not upset for the puppy. He is frightened that George will not let him tend the rabbits when he finds out.

He gets angry with the puppy for dying, then hides it in the hay, then takes it out again. His reasoning is that the puppy was not as small as a mouse and he did not bounce it hard.

Curley’s wife comes into the barn. Lennie tells her he is not supposed to talk to her. She stays anyway, because he is the only person on the ranch who will sit and listen.

She tells him about her life. A man once told her she could be in pictures and promised to write to her. The letter never came, and she believes her mother took it. She married Curley shortly afterwards. She says plainly that she does not like him.

Lennie keeps talking about rabbits and how he likes to stroke soft things. She offers to let him feel her hair, and says it is soft because she brushes it. He strokes it too hard and she tells him to stop.

She pulls away, and he holds on. She begins to scream, and he covers her mouth in a panic, telling her to be quiet because George will be angry. He shakes her to make her stop. Her body flops, and then she is still, because he has broken her neck.

Lennie half buries her in the hay and takes the dead puppy. He goes to the pool and hides in the brush, exactly as George told him in Chapter 1.

Candy finds the body and fetches George. They both understand at once that the dream is over. George says he will work his month, take his pay and spend it like every other lonely ranch hand. Candy is left alone with her body and turns on her in grief.

When the men are told, Curley wants a lynching. He says he will shoot Lennie himself. George quietly asks whether they could bring him in and lock him up instead. Slim answers that Lennie would be strapped down and caged, which would be no kindness. Carlson then reports that his Luger is missing, and the men set out.

One key quote

“And the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young.”
The narrator, describing Curley’s wife after her death.

This is the only time in the novel that Curley’s wife is described kindly, and she has to die first. Every earlier description was about paint, red nails and rolled curls, or about what the men decided she was.

Read the list carefully. Meanness, planning, discontent and an ache for attention. Steinbeck is naming the things the ranch saw in her, and saying they are gone. He is not saying they were never real. He is saying they were what living there did to her.

Compare this with her first appearance in Chapter 2, which is all surface and make-up. Putting those two descriptions side by side is one of the strongest paragraphs a student can write about this novel.

What this chapter is doing

Steinbeck refuses to make the death comfortable. He tells you her eyes were wild with terror and that she went on struggling. Lennie is not presented as harmless here. He is presented as something that cannot let go, which is more frightening.

Watch the pattern repeat. A mouse in Chapter 1. A puppy at the start of this chapter. A woman by the middle of it. Each one is bigger than the last. Each time, Lennie says a version of the same thing, that he did not mean it.

Notice the fish simile. Curley’s crushed fist flopped like a fish on a line in Chapter 3, and her body flops the same way here. Steinbeck uses the identical image for both, so that the fight and the killing become one continuous fact about Lennie.

George’s reaction tells you everything about the dream. He says he thinks he knew from the very first that they would never do it. That is worse than Crooks saying it in Chapter 4, because George is the one who invented the story.

Themes that show up

The dream dies. Not slowly. Candy and George know it is over the moment they see the body.
Curley’s wife as a victim. She has a broken dream of her own, a marriage she dislikes, and nobody at all to talk to.
Strength and innocence together. Lennie panics rather than attacks. George later insists he never did a bad thing in meanness.
Foreshadowing paid off. The soft things, the holding on, the girl in Weed. Everything planted earlier arrives here.
Revenge against mercy. Curley wants to shoot Lennie in the guts. That reaction is what leaves George only one option.

Common questions that come up

A question about a character you felt sorry for suits Curley’s wife. This chapter is where you prove it. Use her account of the letter that never came, and then the description of her face after death.

For a question on a dramatic or shocking moment, this scene works, but be careful. Describe what Steinbeck actually writes, including her terror. An answer that skips the violence to defend Lennie is not reading the text.

A question on how a writer prepares the reader can trace the pattern from the mouse to the puppy to the woman. Three deaths, the same cause, increasing in size. That is a structure point, and structure points score well.

If a question asks about the moment a character’s hopes were destroyed, use George’s admission that he knew all along. The dream did not fail because of one accident. He is telling you it was never a plan.

Common mistake

Many students write that Curley’s wife caused her own death by flirting with Lennie. Be very careful with that argument, because it is the ranch’s view and Steinbeck is criticising it. She is lonely and talking to the one person who will listen. She offers her hair to a man she has no reason to fear. The novel never gives her a name of her own, and describes her kindly only once she is dead. An answer that blames her has taken the bunkhouse side without noticing.

Quick recall

1. What has Lennie done at the start of the chapter?

He has killed the puppy Slim gave him by handling it too roughly. He is sitting in the hay in the barn with the body in front of him.

2. Why is Lennie upset about the puppy?

Not because it is dead. Because he is afraid George will find out and refuse to let him tend the rabbits on the farm.

3. What does Curley’s wife tell Lennie about her past?

That a man told her she could be in pictures and promised to write to her. The letter never arrived and she believes her mother took it. She married Curley soon after.

4. What does she say about her marriage?

That she does not like Curley and that he is not a nice man. She also says she is not allowed to talk to anybody but him.

5. How does the killing happen?

She lets Lennie stroke her hair. He holds on too hard and will not let go. When she screams he covers her mouth and shakes her to keep her quiet, and breaks her neck.

6. Where does Lennie go afterwards?

To the pool by the river where the novel began, to hide in the brush. He is following the instruction George gave him in Chapter 1.

7. Who finds the body?

Candy. He goes to fetch George, and the two of them realise straight away that the farm will never happen.

8. What does George say he will do now?

Work his month, take his pay and spend it in town like every other ranch hand. It is the exact life he described in Chapter 1 as the fate of lonely men.

9. What does Curley want to do?

Shoot Lennie himself, in the guts, even with one working hand. He wants revenge rather than justice, and he will not consider anything else.

10. Why does George decide he cannot let Lennie be caught?

Because the alternatives are worse. Curley intends to kill him painfully, and Slim points out that being locked up and strapped down would be no kindness either.

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