Of Mice and Men: Part 5 Summary & Analysis

The next afternoon, while the other men play horseshoes outside in the bright sun, Lennie is alone in the barn. He is staring at his puppy, which is dead on the hay in front of him. Even though Lennie knows the puppy is dead, he continues stroking it heavily. He talks to the puppy as he pets it. Lennie is worried that if George finds out he has killed the puppy, he won’t be allowed to tend rabbits in the future. In a fit of anger, fear, and frustration, Lennie picks the puppy up and throws it against the wall of the barn. 

Lennie feels badly and goes over to retrieve the puppy so he can hold it in his lap. As he sits stroking it some more, continuing to worry about what George will say and do when he finds out the pup is dead, Curley’s wife comes into the barn. She approaches Lennie and asks what he has in his hands. The startled Lennie replies that George told him he isn’t meant to talk to her. Curley’s wife says she’s lonely and asks Lennie how he would feel if he never had anyone to talk to. Lennie maintains that talking to Curley’s wife could get him in trouble.

Curley’s wife asks Lennie what he’s holding. Lennie shows her the puppy, and she is surprised to see that it’s dead. Lennie explains that he was playing with the puppy when it “made like [it was] gonna bite,” so Lennie smacked the puppy and killed it. Curley’s wife tells the distressed Lennie not to worry—the puppy was just a mutt, and he can easily get another.

Lennie grows quiet and repeats that if George catches him talking to Curley’s wife, he’ll be in trouble. Curley’s wife laments the fact that none of the men on the ranch will talk to her. She says she hates living the way she’s living and wishes she could have made something of herself. Curley’s wife launches into memory, recalling how, in her teenage years, she met a man in a traveling show who told her she could be in movies. Her mother interfered with her dreams, however, and so she wound up married to Curley even though she doesn’t like him one bit.

As the sounds of the horseshoe game echo in from outside, Lennie wonders aloud if he could avoid trouble with George by throwing the puppy away. If George doesn’t know about the dead puppy, Lennie reasons, he won’t stop Lennie from tending the rabbits. Curley’s wife asks Lennie why he’s so obsessed with rabbits, and Lennie replies that he likes to “pet nice things.” Curley’s wife says she, too, likes touching soft things, and enjoys touching her own hair as she brushes it each night. She invites Lennie to stroke her hair. He does so, touching her hair gently at first but growing increasingly rough with his strokes. Curley’s wife calls for him to stop, but Lennie closes his fingers around her hair and holds on.

As Curley’s wife begins screaming, Lennie panics. He puts his hands over her nose and mouth to stop her from screaming, and she begins struggling violently and writhing in the hay. Lennie begs her to stop yelling, or else George will be mad at both of them. When Curley’s wife doesn’t stop her muffled screams, Lennie shakes her until her neck snaps. Lennie whispers to himself that he’s “done another bad thing.” Lennie covers Curley’s wife in some hay, picks up the dead puppy, and resolves to go hide in the brush until George comes for him.

Candy comes into the barn looking for Lennie, excited to tell him more about some of the figuring he’s done about their piece of land. He spots Curley’s wife lying on the ground half-covered in hay, and calls out to her to chastise her for sleeping in such a strange place. As he gets closer to her, though, he sees that she is dead. Horrified, he runs out of the barn, fetches George, and brings him back inside to see what’s happened.

Candy and George stare in horror at Curley’s wife’s dead body. Both of them realize that Lennie is responsible for her death, though neither of them will say the truth aloud. Candy asks what they should do, and George says they’ll have to fetch “the poor bastard” and let the boss lock him up—if Lennie runs away on his own, he’ll starve. George hopes the owners of the ranch will have compassion for Lennie and let him live, but Candy tells him that Curley will surely have Lennie killed. George sadly agrees.

Candy asks George if they’ll still be able to get their “little place.” George admits that all along, deep down, he knew that they’d never get their farm. George laments that he’ll now live like an ordinary ranch hand, spending everything he makes each month in a whorehouse or a poolroom.

Candy says he can’t believe Lennie would do something so violent. George insists Lennie didn’t do it out of meanness—out of all the bad things Lennie has done, he’s “never done one of ‘em mean.”

George tells Candy that they need to devise a plan to keep George from looking suspicious. He says he’s going to sneak over to the bunk house and asks Candy to wait several minutes before coming back out of the barn and telling the other men what he’s found. Candy agrees to the plan, and George hurries out of the barn.

Alone with Curley’s wife’s corpse, Candy curses the “lousy tart” for messing everything up for him. After lamenting aloud all that he has lost because of her death, he goes out to tell the other men. The game abruptly comes to a stop, and Slim, Whit, Curley, and Crooks all rush into the barn. Candy follows them, and then George arrives. Curley is furious, and vows to kill “the big son-of-a-bitch” before running from the barn. Carlson runs out to get his pistol.

Slim asks George where Lennie might have gone—he seems sad at the prospect of hunting the man down and killing him. George asks if Lennie could be captured but not killed, but Slim says it’d be “no good” to keep Lennie in a cage for the rest of his life. Carlson runs back into the barn, shouting that Lennie has stolen his Luger. Curley suggests they use Crooks’s gun to hunt down Lennie, and orders Whit to go into town to get the sheriff. Slim suggests Curley stay back with his wife’s body, but Curley is determined to go out and kill Lennie himself.

Slim tells Candy to stay with Curley’s wife, and Candy agrees to do so. All the other men, including George, follow Curley out of the barn. As the men’s footsteps recede and the light in the barn grows dimmer, Curley lies down in the hay and covers his face with his arm.