Of Mice And Men Chapter 1 Summary | Junior Cycle English

Of Mice and Men Chapter 1 Summary: Where we are

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Evening, beside a deep green pool on the Salinas river in California. Two migrant workers stop here for the night. They start a new job on a ranch in the morning. Nothing has gone wrong yet, and almost everything that will go wrong is already visible.

What happens

George Milton and Lennie Small walk up the path to the pool. George is small, sharp-featured and quick. Lennie is huge and slow, and Steinbeck describes him moving like a bear. They are carrying their blankets and everything they own.

Lennie drinks from the pool like an animal. George warns him the water may be bad. Lennie copies whatever George does, exactly, without being asked.

George notices Lennie hiding something. It is a dead mouse. Lennie has been stroking it as they walked. George makes him throw it away, twice, because Lennie goes back for it.

They talk about the job ahead. George is carrying both work cards because Lennie loses things. George loses his temper and lists what Lennie costs him. He could live easily on his own. Lennie offers to go and live in a cave, and George immediately backs down.

We learn why they left their last job in Weed. Lennie touched a girl’s dress because he liked how it felt. He would not let go when she screamed. The two of them had to hide in an irrigation ditch and run.

They eat tinned beans by the fire. Lennie asks for the story, the way a child asks for a bedtime story he already knows. George tells it. They will save money, buy a few acres, keep animals, and answer to nobody. Lennie’s job in the story is to tend the rabbits.

Before they sleep, George gives Lennie an instruction. If any trouble happens, Lennie is to come straight back to this pool and hide in the brush until George comes.

One key quote

“Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no fambly. They don’t belong no place.”
George, telling Lennie the story of the farm.

George says this as the opening of a happy story, which is what makes it strange. Before he describes the dream, he describes the loneliness the dream is meant to cure. Every other character you meet later fits this description. George and Lennie do not, and that is the point he is making.

He follows it immediately with the answer: they are different because they have each other and a future. Those two speeches sit side by side. Learn them as a pair, because a question on friendship needs both halves.

What this chapter is doing

Steinbeck is planting the ending in the opening. The pool is where the novel finishes. The instruction to hide in the brush is what Lennie obeys in the final chapter. The dead mouse shows you exactly how Lennie kills, by holding on too hard to something soft.

Lennie tells George he did not mean to kill the mice his Aunt Clara gave him. He pinched their heads because they bit his fingers, and they were small. That is the whole tragedy of the book explained in the first few pages, before anybody has met Curley’s wife.

The chapter also fixes the shape of the friendship. Lennie copies George without thinking. George swings between resentment and care within a single conversation. He shouts, then apologises, then tells the story Lennie wants to hear.

Themes that show up

Loneliness. Stated directly by George before the reader has met a single lonely character. The book then spends five chapters proving him right.
The dream. The farm appears in its plainest form here. Track how it grows in Chapter 3, cracks in Chapter 4, and dies in Chapter 5.
Strength without control. The dead mouse, and the story of the girl in Weed. Lennie damages what he wants to keep.
Friendship as a choice. George lists what Lennie costs him and stays anyway.

Common questions that come up

A question on a relationship in your studied text should start here, not at the ending. Show the reader you understand the friendship before the crisis tests it. Use George’s loneliness speech, then his description of what they have instead.

A question on an opening that made you want to read on can use the dead mouse. It is a small, odd detail that turns out to be a warning. Say what you thought it meant first, then what it turned out to mean.

For a question on how a writer builds tension, this chapter is strong evidence. Steinbeck tells you what Lennie does to small soft creatures. Then he sends him to a ranch with a puppy, a lonely woman and a jealous husband.

If you are asked about setting, note that the pool is peaceful and green, and that the violence happens somewhere else. Steinbeck keeps this one place safe until the last chapter.

Common mistake

Students often write that George is cruel to Lennie in this chapter. Read the shouting more carefully. George loses his temper, then apologises, then tells the story he has clearly told hundreds of times. The temper is real, but so is the fact that he has never once left. An answer that only notices the shouting has read half the scene.

Quick recall

1. Where does the novel open?

At a deep green pool beside the Salinas river in California, a few miles south of Soledad. George and Lennie camp here the night before starting a new job.

2. What is Lennie hiding in his pocket?

A dead mouse. He has been stroking it as they walk. George makes him throw it away twice, because Lennie goes back to fetch it.

3. Why did they have to leave Weed?

Lennie touched a girl’s dress because he liked the feel of it. She screamed, and he held on tighter instead of letting go. They hid in an irrigation ditch until dark and then ran.

4. Why does George carry both work cards?

Because Lennie loses things and cannot be trusted to keep his own. It is a small detail that shows how completely George manages Lennie’s life.

5. What is the dream George describes?

A few acres of their own, with a small house, a cow, some pigs and rabbits. They would work for themselves and answer to nobody. Lennie’s job would be tending the rabbits.

6. What instruction does George give Lennie before they sleep?

If any trouble happens, Lennie must come straight back to this pool and hide in the brush until George comes for him. Lennie obeys this instruction in the final chapter.

7. How does Steinbeck describe Lennie when we first see him?

Through animal imagery. He is huge, shapeless of face, with wide sloping shoulders, and he drags his feet the way a bear drags its paws. The comparison prepares you for strength he cannot control.

8. What happened to the mice Aunt Clara gave Lennie?

He killed them all by petting them too hard. He explains that they bit his fingers, so he pinched their heads, and they died because they were so little. It is the clearest warning in the novel.

9. What does Lennie do that shows how much he depends on George?

He copies him exactly. When George drops his blankets and lies down at the pool, Lennie watches and does the same. He has no way of deciding anything for himself.

10. Why does the opening setting matter to the ending?

Because the novel returns to it. Chapter 6 happens at the same pool. Steinbeck builds a circle, so the place that feels safest at the start becomes the place where the story finishes.

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