Comparisons to Animals
The story Of Mice and Men using many comparisons to animals, as obvious by the title; the comparisons can be personifications to similes to metaphors, but all the same they relate the characters of the book and animals. The author does this because people naturally relate to animals. When we hear the saying, "free like a bird," we picture a bird flying through the sky and the unbridled freedom it must feel. Animals have become such a common part of human's everyday lives that it is hard for us not to understand a comparison to an animal, even if we never heard it before. The most prevalent animals used is a dog as most male authors do. Examples include "Lennie covered his face with huge paws and bleated with terror (page 63)," and "He pawed the hay until it partly covered her (page 92)". Both these comparison are made to Lennie because the author trying to show the reader the parallels between Lennie and a dog. It is not necessarily saying that Lennie is George's or anyone else's dog, but that Lennie shares an astoundingly many characteristics with the animal. It shows like George is extremely loyal, a tad lumbering, and a dedicated friend. Steinbeck goes on to describe others and their personalities with common animal comparisons; George is "quick as a fox" and Curly's wife "flopped like a fish." So, not only does Steinbeck use these animal similes and metaphors so that the reading is easily understood but also because animal comparisons are the one of the most effective devices in description.
Hyperboles
Of Mice and Men was written during the time of the Great Depression where people lived in conditions near squalor and food and money were nearly a luxury. When told of stories of the Great Depression, they sound as if they were grossly exaggerated or full of hyperboles, and yet they were the bare truth. Steinbeck used hyperboles to show people and later generations how dreadful the time period truly was. After all, the impossibility of the American dream was a key theme of the entire story. Examples of hyperboles through out the story are "You'd drink out of the gutter if you was thirsty (page 3)," and "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world (page 13-14)." The first of the two was not just to show the simplicity in Lennie's nature but also elude to what some people in the Depression would actually do if they were thirsty enough. The latter statement shows the loneliness, one of the main themes of the book, and the price men and woman had to pay to provide for just themselves. Overall, Steinbeck used hyperboles to show how blatantly bad the time period and America as a whole was at that time.