It’s been decades since John Steinbeck sat down to write about a dusty ranch in Soledad, yet we’re still talking about it. Every year, thousands of people search for a reliable of mice and men character list because they’ve got a test coming up or they’re trying to settle a debate about whether George was actually a "good" guy. Most of the summaries you find online are pretty dry. They tell you Lennie is big and George is small.
That’s boring. It’s also barely scratching the surface of what Steinbeck was actually doing.
Basically, the characters in this book aren't just names on a page. They are archetypes of the Great Depression. They represent the loneliness, the broken dreams, and the brutal social hierarchy of 1930s America. If you look at the of mice and men character list through the lens of survival, the whole story changes. It’s not just a sad story about a guy and his friend. It’s a autopsy of the American Dream.
George Milton: The Man With the Burden
George is often painted as the hero. He’s the protector. But if you really sit with the text, George is also deeply resentful. He’s a small man, wiry and sharp, both in his physical features and his temperament. He spends a huge chunk of the book complaining about how much easier his life would be if he didn't have Lennie.
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"I could get along so easy and so nice if I didn't have you on my tail," he says. He’s not lying. He could take his fifty bucks at the end of the month and go to a "cat house" or stay in a hotel. Instead, he’s stuck in a cycle of fleeing towns like Weed because Lennie gets into trouble.
Why does he stay?
Honestly, it’s not just out of the goodness of his heart. George needs Lennie as much as Lennie needs him. In a world where every other ranch hand is a solitary drifter—isolated and bitter—George has a companion. He has someone to talk to. Without Lennie, George is just another nameless face in a bunkhouse. He uses their shared dream of "living off the fatta the lan'" as a mental shield against the crushing reality of their poverty. By the time we get to the end of the book, George’s decision to kill Lennie isn't just an act of mercy; it's the moment George kills his own hope. He knows that once Lennie is gone, the dream of the farm dies too.
Lennie Small: The Great Irony
Lennie is the giant of the of mice and men character list, and his last name, Small, is one of the least subtle literary puns in history. He has the mind of a child and the strength of a bull. Steinbeck describes him using animal imagery—dragging his feet like a bear, drinking from a pool like a horse.
Lennie isn't "bad" in a moral sense. He doesn't have malice. He just doesn't understand the physical world. He loves soft things—mice, puppies, velvet, Curley’s wife’s hair—but he lacks the "fine motor skills" or the mental capacity to realize that his strength is lethal.
The tragedy of Lennie is that he is a "natural" man in a "civilized" world that has no place for him. In 1937, when the book was published, there were no social safety nets for people with intellectual disabilities. You either worked or you starved. Or, if you were deemed a threat, you were locked away in horrific conditions. George knows this. When George looks at Lennie, he sees a person. When the rest of the world (like Curley) looks at Lennie, they see a target or a beast.
Candy and the Reality of Usefulness
If you want to understand the stakes of this book, look at Candy. He’s the old swamper with one hand. He’s the first one to buy into George and Lennie’s dream because he knows his time is running out.
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The most gut-wrenching scene in the book isn't the ending. It's the death of Candy’s dog. Carlson, one of the other ranch hands, insists on shooting the dog because it smells and it’s "no good to itself." This is a direct parallel to how the ranch treats humans. Once you’re too old or too broken to work, you’re discarded.
Candy’s fear is palpable. He’s got $250 saved up from his accident, and he’s willing to give it all to George and Lennie just so he doesn't end up on the street. He represents the fate that awaits George: an old man with nothing but a broom and a looming sense of worthlessness.
Curley and the Insecurity of Power
Every of mice and men character list needs a villain, and Curley fits the bill. He’s the boss’s son, which gives him a level of security no one else has. But he’s also tiny. He wears high-heeled boots to look taller and keeps a glove full of Vaseline on one hand (which is just weird, honestly, though he claims it's for his wife).
Curley is a lightweight boxer, and he’s always looking for a fight. He targets Lennie because Lennie is big. Curley thinks that if he can beat up a giant, he’ll finally feel like a big man himself. He is the embodiment of "Napoleon Syndrome." His jealousy regarding his wife isn't about love; it's about possession. He doesn't care that she’s lonely; he cares that she might make him look weak in front of the other men.
Curley’s Wife: The Character Without a Name
She doesn't even get a name. She’s just "Curley’s wife."
For a long time, readers saw her as a "tart" or a temptress who caused Lennie’s downfall. That’s a pretty shallow take. If you look at her dialogue, she’s incredibly lonely. She’s the only woman on a ranch full of men who are terrified of talking to her because they don’t want to get fired by Curley.
She had dreams of being an actress in Hollywood. She thinks she’s special. But she’s stuck in a loveless marriage on a dirt farm. When she talks to Lennie in the barn, she’s not trying to seduce him. She’s just desperate for a human connection. She’s a "jailbait" to the men, but in reality, she’s a prisoner herself. Her death is a freak accident, the result of two desperate people colliding in a way that neither understood.
Crooks: The Double Margin
Crooks is the black stable buck. If Candy is marginalized because of age and disability, and the wife is marginalized because of gender, Crooks is the most isolated of all. He literally lives in a different building.
He’s cynical and mean to Lennie at first. He tries to scare Lennie by saying George might not come back. It feels cruel, but Crooks is just projecting his own reality. He’s been hurt so much by the world that he tries to hurt others before they can get to him.
The tragedy of Crooks is that for a brief moment, he lets himself believe in the dream. He asks if he can come along to the farm and work for just his room and board. But as soon as Curley’s wife reminds him that she could have him lynched just by saying the word, he retreats back into his shell. He "retires" his interest in the dream because hope is too dangerous for a man in his position.
Slim: The Rational God
Slim is the "jerkline skinner." He’s the only character on the ranch who has true authority, not because he’s the boss’s son, but because he’s good at his job and he has a natural "gravity."
Steinbeck describes him as having hands as "delicate as a temple dancer." He’s the moral center of the book. He’s the only one who truly understands the bond between George and Lennie. At the end, when George is shattered after killing Lennie, Slim is the one who sits next to him and says, "You hadda, George. I swear you hadda."
Slim represents the rare person who can see the world clearly without becoming cynical or cruel. He’s the only one who isn't "lonely" in the traditional sense, because he’s at peace with his place in the world.
Why the Bunkhouse Matters
The setting itself acts like a character. The bunkhouse is a place of temporary existence. There are no personal belongings, just little shelves for soap and razors. This environment shapes the characters. When you live in a place where nothing belongs to you, you stop belonging to anyone else.
This is why the of mice and men character list is so heavy on "types."
- The Muscle (Lennie)
- The Brains (George)
- The Authority (Slim)
- The Outcast (Crooks)
- The Victim (Curley’s Wife)
- The Used-Up (Candy)
Common Misconceptions About the Characters
A lot of people think George is a saint. He’s not. He’s a man pushed to the brink. If you read the scene where he tells Lennie to jump into the river (before the book starts), you see that George used to bully Lennie. He only stopped when he realized Lennie was so loyal he’d drown just because George told him to. George’s protection of Lennie is partly penance for his past cruelty.
Another big one: People think Lennie is just "dumb." Lennie actually has a very sophisticated emotional intelligence in some ways. He can manipulate George by threatening to "go live in a cave." He knows how to make George feel guilty. It’s a survival mechanism.
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Making Sense of the Tragedy
If you’re analyzing this for a project or just trying to get a deeper handle on the story, don't look at these characters in isolation. Look at how they interact with the idea of "The Dream."
- George and Lennie see the dream as a way to belong.
- Candy sees the dream as a way to survive old age.
- Crooks sees the dream as a way to gain dignity.
- Curley’s Wife sees her dream (Hollywood) as a way to escape her reality.
Every single one of them fails.
The book argues that in a predatory economic system, the weak will always be destroyed by the strong, and even the strong (like George) will be broken by the effort of trying to protect the weak. It’s a pessimistic view, sure. But it’s also a deeply empathetic one. Steinbeck isn't judging these people; he’s mourning them.
Practical Steps for Character Analysis
If you're digging into this of mice and men character list for an essay or a deep read, here is how you should approach it to get the best insights:
- Track the Animal Imagery: Every time Lennie is compared to an animal, look at what’s happening. Is he being described as a predator or prey?
- Watch the Hands: Steinbeck focuses on hands constantly. Candy is missing one. Curley has a glove. Slim has "temple dancer" hands. Lennie has "paws." This tells you about their labor and their power.
- Listen to the Silence: Pay attention to who doesn't speak. When Carlson is taking Candy’s dog out to be shot, the silence in the bunkhouse is a character of its own. It represents the complicity of the other men.
- Compare the "Dreams": Write down what each character wants versus what they actually have. The gap between those two things is where the "theme" lives.
Understanding the characters in Of Mice and Men requires looking past the 1930s slang and seeing the universal human need for companionship. We all want a place where we "belong." We all want to believe that someone has our back. George and Lennie had that, for a little while. And in the world of the Soledad ranch, even a few weeks of friendship was a miracle.