Foreshadowing
![Picture](/uploads/1/7/9/0/17907071/6152513.jpg)
Foreshadowing is used widely throughout John Steinbeck's novel, Of Mice and Men. He uses it to add suspense and highten the rising action of the story. Throughout the novel, Steinbeck hints that something bad is going to happen to several characters. For example, early in the novel many characters in the bunk house say that Candy's dog needs to be put down, and then later in the novel Candy lets them do it. An example a little less obvious thoough, is Carlson's Germen Lugar. When it was first introduced it didn't seem that significant, but as the story progressed it became more and more important. After George and Candy find Curly's wife dead, George snuck back into the empty bunkhouse to avoid suspension. That is when he took Carlson's Lugar because he knew that him and Lennie were not going to be able to get away this time. Another relatively obvious foreshadowing was found early on in the story as George and Lennie were talking about the bad thing he diid in Weed and that Lennie needs to make sure he doesn't do a bad thing again. More specifically of this is when George told Lennie, "...if you jus' happen to get in trouble like you always done before, I want you to come right here an' hide in the brush" (Steinbeck 15). This gave the audience a sneaking suspension that Lennie was somehow going to find his way into trouble again.
When critic Burton Rascoe was reviewing Of Mice and Men he bashed that, "Anyone with any deductive sense at all needs to read only five pages of the novel Of Mice and Men to discover the 'plot,' to know what is going to happen. The intelligent reader knows that poor Lennie is going to 'do a bad thing again' as he did before when he wanted to stroke a girl's dress (and that was all he wanted to do), and the girl got frightened and screamed because se thought she was being attacked, and Lennie and George has to run away and hide in a swamp in water up to their necks to escape the mob that was going to lynch Lennie" (337). The truth is the audience does realize Lennie is going to realize that Lennie is going to mess up again, but they still don't know how or when he will. Hinting towards that actually built suspense throughout the novel as the reader was waiting for the anticipated mistake by Lennie. All in all, foreshadowing adding an additional level of thought and imagery to the plot of Of Mice and Men.
When critic Burton Rascoe was reviewing Of Mice and Men he bashed that, "Anyone with any deductive sense at all needs to read only five pages of the novel Of Mice and Men to discover the 'plot,' to know what is going to happen. The intelligent reader knows that poor Lennie is going to 'do a bad thing again' as he did before when he wanted to stroke a girl's dress (and that was all he wanted to do), and the girl got frightened and screamed because se thought she was being attacked, and Lennie and George has to run away and hide in a swamp in water up to their necks to escape the mob that was going to lynch Lennie" (337). The truth is the audience does realize Lennie is going to realize that Lennie is going to mess up again, but they still don't know how or when he will. Hinting towards that actually built suspense throughout the novel as the reader was waiting for the anticipated mistake by Lennie. All in all, foreshadowing adding an additional level of thought and imagery to the plot of Of Mice and Men.