The best plan,
Regardless of man and mouse,
will often fail,
What remains is not the expected pleasure,
It's melancholy and pain!
- "To the Shrew"
"Human loneliness" is an ancient and eternal theme of human beings, and it is also a theme that modernist writers focus on rendering. From the poem "To the Weasel" by the famous British poet Pence, the theme of the work "Between Man and Mouse" is revealed: the "loneliness" and "despair" of human survival.
Between Man and Mouse is a novella by American writer John Steinbeck, published in 1937. Through the title of the work, the author cleverly links people and rats, so that the living situation of people is more tragic.
Rats are low-level animals, and in order to protect themselves, they carefully build nests and store food. In nature, rats do not have the ability to fight, and they are often chased and beaten. And the same is true of man in this world, and the person who can be compared with the fate of the lowest animal "rat" is the person living at the lowest level of society.
A few miles south of Solly-Dade, the Charenus River flows green and deep against the cliffbank on the edge of the mountain, and the water is still warm, because it passes through the yellow sand that is hot and hot by the sun, and it reaches this narrow pool.
Set against the backdrop of Salinas in central California, the story describes the tragic story of two impoverished but interdependent American migrant agricultural workers George and Lee Nai chasing their dreams during the special period of the Great Depression in the United States, which is intended to reveal the loneliness and misfortune of seasonal agricultural workers on American farms.
George was a short, lean, dark face with anxious eyes, and the whole person looked small and powerful, but the big Lenny, who was the opposite of him, was ugly, with large and unfocused eyes, broad shoulders drooping down, heavy steps when walking, mopping the ground with his feet like a bear, arms not shaking, loosely hunched over the sides of his body. He has great arm strength, but thinks and talks like a toddler, and he is an "idiot giant".
People who are abandoned by life do not understand the brilliance of the sun, they only understand the hardships of the world, and when they are not envisioned by others, they have also dreamed of living the life they want one day in the future, but after the experience of time, they have slowly learned to survive in loneliness, they no longer look forward to it and no longer desire...
George and Lenny's dream was to save enough money later to get a hut, two acres of land with a cow, a few pigs, a large vegetable patch and a rabbit cage in front of their hut, and some chickens, and when it rained, they could easily say what they could not do to work, they would put the stove on fire in the house, sit around the stove, and listen to the sound of raindrops on the roof.
This is their dream, and the dream of all the migrant workers, who have no land, no homes, no little of their own, who can only wander around, selling coolies in exchange for a meager amount of money that can prolong their lives, and this is their whole life. They drift around like rats, like voles that have lost their nests and fled, fantasizing about earning a piece of land and house of their own through labor, and thus becoming the masters of their own destiny.
George and Lenny, they are not alone, because they have the love and love between each other, they have each other's care, they will not spend their money because they have nowhere to go, sitting in a bar like everyone else, they will not be left unaccompanied, they firmly believe that one day, they will gather the money and realize their dreams.
Until the end, Lenny looked across the river, listened happily to George's story of future life, and died in a fantasy. George killed Lenny, and with Lenny died a dream they shared that could never be fulfilled. Since then, Without Lenny's company, George has only the days of making money and squandering.
"People are people, rats, the most satisfactory arrangements are often accidents", the big "stupid people" and the small "smart people" rely on a tacit dream of two friends to survive in the chaotic world but do not give up the struggle, and finally the gunshots sound to end each other's dreams......... After all, the dream of "one piece of land" cannot be realized.
A good book is like a cup of refreshing tea, let people's hearts be beautiful, get inspiration in the realization and intoxication, thank you for paying attention to the smell of books, I share good books with you.