From Of Mice and Men’s very first page, main characters George and Lennie are toast. They’re toast because they’re poor. They’re toast because they’re simple. George and Lennie are also toast because that’s the way author John Steinbeck thinks America works—dooming ordinary people to failure before the first chapter of their lives has been told. Maybe that’s why John Steinbeck tells Of Mice and Men’s basic story in its very first chapter.
