1. How he describes particular characters
How does John Steinbeck manipulate the emotions and reactions of the reader whilst they are reading “Of Mice and Men”?
How he describes particular characters
Curley’s wife is never given a name, which hint at the gender divide, back in the time. She is always put down, and described as a ‘tart’, however once she is dead Steinbeck actually starts saying nice things about her. This gives the reader the option to either hate her for being a tart, or feel sorry for her as she is now dead.

2. How he describes particular characters
Curley’s Wife – we learn a lot about Curley’s Wife, before we meet her, mostly from comments from other ranch workers. These are all pretty negative, such as ‘tart’ ‘looloo’ ‘she’s got the eye’ so Steinbeck wants us to dislike her. Also, we never learn her name, and this stops us from empathising with her, and feeling like she is less than the other characters, similar to the sexism of the time.
Crooks – Crooks is the same, we learn about him before we meet him. However he isn’t really given a personality, and is mostly referred to as “stable buck” or “nigger”, to stop us from empathising from him, as not giving him a name is almost not giving him a personality, and we almost feel less of him, similar to the racism of the time.

3. How does he describes particular characters
Steinbeck likes to describe his characters in immense detail, in particular he starts to talk about Curley’s wife before we meet her Candy says “She’s go the eye” the eye implies that she goes about flirting with other men in addition to this Candy says “ well I think Curley’s married…a tart.” Steinbeck is trying to make us dislike her before we even meet her by using negative descriptions of her from other characters.
Also due the segregation at the time, Crooks had to go through some disrespect due to his colour. He was referred to as the Nigger stable buck until around the fourth Chapter which was when he was awarded a name. Even that name was an insult because they called him crooks due to his crooked back. This makes the reader feel sorry for Crooks

4. How characters are introduced to the reader
George and Lennie – Both George and Lennie are introduced at the same time, in the same way. We are given physical descriptions of them, before we learn anything about their personality. However, their physical appearance is very representative of their characteristics. Such as Lennie being like an animal, and George being “small and quick”.
Slim – Slim is given a very positive description in his introduction, such as the phrase “king of the ranch”. This is as all of the ranch workers look up to him, and Steinbeck wants us to feel exactly the same as them. I think that as Steinbeck has made us feel the same way about Slim as the ranch workers, it means that we can empathise with the characters a lot more.

5. How characters are introduced to the reader
Some characters are spoken about before they are even seen in the story, for example Curley’s wife is spoken about by Candy the swamper, before we have even seen her in the story. This makes the reader anticipate her arrival, as if her entrance will be dramatic and significant to the story.
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6. The clues that he gives the reader that hint at the trouble to come
The colour red – Both Curley’s wife and the girl in Weed wore red, and both were attacked by Lennie. We learn about the girl in Weed quite a while before Lennie attacks Curley’s wife, so the fact that one of the only descriptions given of the girl in Weed matches Curley’s wife could be seen as a hint that Lennie will attack Curley’s wife, similar to the girl in Weed.
Also, in the beginning of the book, George tells Lennie to come back to the brush if “you mess things up again, like you always do”. This almost creates a sense of a cycle, that George and Lennie have gone to a ranch, Lennie has messed things up, and now they’re going to a new ranch, and this quote could be seen as a hint that Lennie will mess things up again.

7. The Clues Steinbeck gives the reader
Steinbeck dresses both the girl in Weed and Curley’s Wife in red dresses. This gives us the hint that something will happen to Curley’s Wife, something similar to what happened to the girl in Weed. However he does imply that it will be something worse as Lennie is escalating in his behaviour, for example at first he kills a mouse and then a puppy. He also hints at the death of the puppy as he continually gets different characters to talk about Lennie and his behaviour hurting the puppy. “He’s gotta sleep with his mother. You want to kill him?”

8. The clues Steinbeck gives the reader
This makes the reader feel that it is inevitable that this will happen. He also implies it as he constantly refers to her as “trouble”, “jail bait” and “rat trap”. Which makes us think that something bad will happen to do with her. As well as this in the beginning George tells Lennie that if he gets in trouble to go to the brush, which would make the reader think that something may happen to make him go there.
Terriers and bears, with which Lennie is described to in the first chapter are both uncontrollable and vicious would give us the minute inclination that this is how Lennie would eventually act.

9. The clues that he gives the reader that hint at the trouble to come.
The lady talked about in weed is wearing a red dress which matches the dress Curley’s wife wears which would indicate something else will link them.
Lennie's killing escalates instantly within the weekend time frame of the book. Rat > Pup > Curley’s Wife.
Candy, George’s and Lennie’s dream seems to take off way too quickly, meaning from a readers perspective this seems to be quite suspicious.
George seems insistent that Lennie needs to REMEMBER to go back to the brush if something bad happens. He almost gives us the entire plot in just this insistence because Steinbeck implies in this that he will HAVE to come back here.

10. The Order In Which Events Happen
He manipulates the emotions and reactions of the reader by making them feel that everything is going to be alright only to have some horrible event to happen afterwards that makes you think that nothing will ever go right. For example in chapter 3 Lennie’s and Georges dreams look like they will be able to happen as Candy has joined them. Then only a few minutes later Curley and Lennie get into a fight, which makes you think that they will get fired and won’t be able to get the money to do the dream. However it then turns out that they won’t be fired and Curley no longer looks like a threat. Then chapter four makes everything seem alright, but then in chapter five Lennie kills Curley’s Wife and runs away then you realise that they will not be able to do the dream.

11. The order in which he has chosen for events to happen
The end of chapter 4 – Curley’s wife comes in to Crooks’ room at the end of chapter 4, and insults all of the three men. This is a sad part of the book, and we feel sorry for all 4 of the characters mentioned.
Immediately before this, Crooks has agreed to help out on the ranch, and him, Candy and Lennie are talking about the dream, as it’s almost a real thing that will happen. We are lead to feel like them as well, like it will happen, which leads this to be a very positive part of the book.
I think that Steinbeck has put these two events together to create a contrast between our emotions, to draw the reader in, to keep the reader interested in the book.

12. The order in which he has chosen the events to happen…
Steinbeck starts the book by introducing Lennie and George as running away from ‘Weed’, a previous ranch they worked at. This automatically gives the reader a suspicious feeling amongst both characters and why they would be running away. At that time it’s very unheard of for people to be running away from jobs because at this time of the Great Depression there was high unemployment. It was also very unheard of that people travelled with another person which makes Lennie and George seem unusual as they’re very inseparable from one another throughout they’re journey. This builds on the suspicion of these two characters.