Of mice and men :: English Literature

Of mice and men =============== "Of mice and men" is a very touching film of hopes dreams and friendship. Adapted from the novel by John Steinbeck. The film is about two friends, Lennie and George, with a dream of great times with their own land and house. But there is a another story intertwined with theirs, about what people think of women. The two stories together will hold you in an array of emotions from joy to sorrow, and pride to guilt. This film if full of brilliant acting and meaningful uses of light and props. Of the two stories we will look at the one about women. We open the film with a man sitting in the shadows. Little light is coming in through the slits in the wood he is leaning on. He looks depressed and upset and bows his head as if he's trying to recall his memories of what went wrong to lead to this depression. And then we are suddenly in a field with early evening light filling a beautiful landscape, the main focus of our attention is of the woman running across the picture, she's white with brown hair wearing a torn red dress. As she runs we can see she's trying to run away form something or somebody, she's crying and the only sound we hear is her distressed breathing like she wants to cry but is holding the tears back. She looks like she has been attacked, although the dress is torn we only see a petty coat and not any flesh so this suggests that it might not have been sexual. But we can't really say for sure. The red dress represents passion so this says it could be sexual. We the see the two main characters running so we now think that they are connected to this. We never see this woman again in the whole of the story. The next woman we find is first only known as 'Curly's wife'. She first comes into the story when she enters the bunkhouse where Lennie and George have only just arrived and are unpacking. She's wearing a flowery dress which could be seen as innocent as it is cool colours and doesn't reveal much of her figure. Her hair is also in a very feminine style again to show innocence. "I'm looking for curly" she says, almost as if she needs an excuse for being there. But also at the same time using it in an almost flirty sort of way trying to see how the new boys will react. "He was in here a minute ago, but he left" George replies cutting off