Lennie’s Puppy

Lennie’s Puppy

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Lennie was watching George excitedly. . . “Yeah!” George said, “I heard

him, Lennie. I’ll ask him.”

Early in the novella, George promises Lennie that he will get him a puppy if he gets the chance,
saying the puppy would be “better than mice.” So, when Lennie and George overhear Slim
talking about his dog’s new litter, Lennie immediately perks up and excitedly asks George to
talk to Slim about giving him a “brown and white one.” When Lennie says, “You ask him right
away, George, so he won’t kill no more of ’em,” Lennie’s possible puppy symbolizes the
innocence and fragility of life, the childlike quality of Lennie’s personality, and a foreshadowing
of the tragic events to come regarding Lennie and the puppy. Lennie’s words also symbolize
his genuine desire to care for a smaller, weaker animal, much like George genuinely cares for
Lennie, a man who is physically strong but mentally weak and innocent.

Lennie held out his hands pleadingly. “Give ’um to me, George. I’ll take
’um back. I didn’t mean no harm, George. Honest I didn’t. I jus’ wanted to
pet ’um a little.”

After George thanks Slim for giving Lennie a puppy and then confides in him about Lennie’s
challenges and the incident in Weed, they catch Lennie trying to slip into the bunkhouse with
his new puppy even though he knows the puppy needs to stay with its mother. When Lennie
pleads with George, saying, “I didn’t mean no harm . . . I jus’ wanted to pet ’um a little,” Lennie’s
puppy symbolizes Lennie’s innocence, his vulnerability, and how he doesn’t intend to hurt the
puppy but can’t seem to understand how his actions could be dangerous. Lennie’s plea also
echoes his explanation for why he had a dead mouse in his pocket at the beginning of the
story, hinting at the unfortunate connection between the mouse and this puppy.

Lennie sat in the hay and looked at a little dead puppy that lay in front of
him. Lennie looked at it for a long time, and then he put out his huge
hand and stroked it, stroked it clear from one end to the other.

Here, toward the end of the novella, Lennie sorrowfully contemplates how his puppy died and
how this event will a!ect him. As Lennie “put out his huge hand and stroked [the puppy],”
saying, “Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice,” Lennie’s puppy symbolizes the
fragility of life and dreams and Lennie’s inability to recognize his own physical strength. As
Lennie mourns his puppy’s death, his reaction clearly demonstrates that he doesn’t mean to
hurt “the weak” but that his childlike mind cannot grasp the power and destructive quality of his
physical strength. The fact that Lennie seems to only focus on how this event will a!ect
whether George will let him tend the rabbits also shows his inability to fully comprehend his
reality and how he should alter his actions to cause less trouble.

Then all of Lennie’s woe came back on him. “Jus’ my pup,” he said sadly.
“Jus’ my little pup,” And he swept the hay from on top of it. “Why, he’s
dead,” she cried.

As Lennie unveils his “woe” and the details of his puppy’s death to Curley’s wife, Lennie’s puppy
symbolizes a warning or foreshadowing of Lennie’s inability to control his own strength. Despite
hearing about what caused the puppy to die, Curley’s wife continues to push Lennie to confide
in her, ignoring the glaring warning that the puppy’s death represents. When Lennie says, “Jus’
my little pup . . . I was jus’ playin’ with him . . . An’ then he was dead,” he reveals that even though
he adored this puppy, he failed to recognize and control his own strength, and he ultimately
killed something he didn’t mean to. However, Curley’s wife cannot resist the attention and
companionship that Lennie o!ers in this moment and ignores the symbolic warning behind
Lennie’s dead puppy.

Lennie went back and looked at the dead girl. The puppy lay close to her.
Lennie picked it up. “I’ll throw him away,” he said. “It’s bad enough like it
is.” He put the pup under his coat, and he crept to the barn wall and
peered out between the cracks, toward the horseshoe game.

Toward the end of the novella, Lennie’s destruction peaks as his failure to control his own
strength results in the death of his puppy and Curley’s wife. When “Lennie went back and
looked at the dead girl” and “[t]he puppy [that] lay close to her,” the two tragedies symbolically
parallel each other as both deaths were the consequence of Lennie’s inability to recognize
when he is hurting something. Ironically, the puppy, Lennie, and Curley’s wife all were wanting
and needing the same thing: to feel safe, loved, and cared for. When Lennie decides to remove
the dead puppy, saying, “It’s bad enough like it is,” the puppy symbolizes Lennie’s ability to
understand the gravity of the situation, at least to some extent, even if he could not control
what happened.