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“An’ whatta I got,” George went on furiously. “I got you! You can’t keep a job and you lose me ever’ job I get. Jus’ keep me shovin’ all over the country all the time. An’ that ain’t the worst. You get in trouble. You do bad things and I got to get you out.”
George complains about the ways that traveling and looking after Lennie keep him from living freely. There is truth to his statements. Without Lennie, he would have far less responsibilities and troubles and could do whatever he liked. However, George’s complaints are toothless. He loves Lennie and would never leave him. The tragic irony of this passage is that, despite the constraints that Lennie puts on George’s life, Lennie is the force that keeps George pushing toward the goal of living independently on their own farm. At the end of the novel, any chance that George has to live freely and happily dies with Lennie.
You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad. How’d you like not to talk to anybody?
Curley’s wife is one of the most marginalized and captive people on the ranch, along with Crooks, Candy, and Lennie. Curley doesn’t even like to let her leave the house, so most of her life is spent alone at home, with only Curley – a man characterized to be egotistical and violent – for company. The simple act of walking through the ranch and speaking to the ranch hands is a rebellion on her part. Curley’s wife finds the smallest taste of freedom in an otherwise lonely existence via conversations with the men of the ranch. Tragically, Curley’s wife’s search for freedom is what leads to her fateful encounter with Lennie, and consequently her death.
