{"id":6033,"date":"2025-05-04T09:34:33","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T15:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/?p=6033"},"modified":"2025-05-04T11:28:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T17:28:58","slug":"of-mice-and-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/?p=6033","title":{"rendered":"Of Mice and Men"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have forever heard reference to John Steinbeck<\/strong>\u2019s 1937 novel \u201cOf Mice and Men<\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n

I knew or thought it had something to do with the plans and dreams of mice and men of great things that never come true. <\/span><\/p>\n

I have never read the novel or seen any of the many movies and plays it created.<\/p>\n

I just saw a movie clip of when George kills Lennie<\/a><\/strong>. It blew my mind on what was going on, as I saw it out of context with the whole story.<\/p>\n

I was researching the origins of the cartoon of the abominable snowman<\/a><\/strong> hugging George.  <\/span>(\u201chug him and squeeze him and call him George\u201d) There was a comment that the cartoon was a reference back to the \u201cOf Mice and Men\u201d novel. The abominable snowman is Lennie.<\/p>\n

So I found a synopsis or review<\/a> of, \u201cOf Mice and Men<\/strong>\u201d on the web. <\/span><\/p>\n

John Steinbeck also wrote \u201cThe Grapes of Wrath<\/strong>\u201d about the migrant farmers and workers leaving the \u201cdust bowl\u201d farms and traveling to California. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf Mice and Men<\/strong>\u201d was published earlier. It\u2019s about migrant farm hands struggling with existence style living.<\/p>\n

This story is very powerful and disturbing at the same time. It\u2019s extreme in the worse way, but reflects on all our dreams of a perfect existence. Our dreams of our \u201cown place\u201d in this world compared to the struggles of reality and abilities. How two real friends support each other to carry the dream. <\/span><\/p>\n

Neither George or Lennie are \u201cnormal\u201d. Lennie has \u201cspecial\u201d needs and is bullied by others but friended by George.  <\/span>Fits with todays emphasis of Bully-ing. <\/span><\/p>\n

Read it or watch a movie. Be prepared. It will forever affect your thinking about how WE live today (Thank goodness!) But in reality, not much is different.<\/p>\n

It made me tell you about it\u2026<\/p>\n

But I have also learned the inspiration for the name of the novel was from this 1785<\/strong> poem “To a Mouse<\/a><\/strong>” by Robert Burns<\/a>, A Scottish poet and reason for the Scottish slang. <\/p>\n

One phrase,<\/p>\n

\n
“The best laid schemes o\u2019 Mice an\u2019 Men<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
          Gang aft agley,”<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
 <\/div>\n
Often paraphrased, “The best laid plans of mice and men, often go astray.”<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
One person’s interpretation; “The mouse is better than human because he lives only in the present moment. On the other hand, human beings carry the weight of their past and also seriously think about the future. Therefore, they suffer a lot in life<\/em>.”  <\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
True or not, it’s a thought to ponder…<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
To paraphrase Paul Harvey<\/a><\/strong>, we now know…  “The rest of the story”<\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have forever heard reference to John Steinbeck\u2019s 1937 novel \u201cOf Mice and Men\u201d. I knew or thought it had something to do with the plans and dreams of mice and men of great things that never come true.  I have never read the novel or seen any of the many movies and plays it created. I just saw a movie clip of when George kills Lennie. It blew my mind on what was going...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-musing","category-observation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6033"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6040,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6033\/revisions\/6040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}