Now a days bodies can change if a person have a couple thousand to spare; noses can be changed, fat can be sucked out and someone can even have their buttocks enlarged. However, no matter what new advances in plastic surgeries arise, there are two parts of a body that can never change: the hands and eyes. Not only can they never change but to some extent they are also windows into the person's soul, or at least there life and personality. Hands can tell you the age and occupation of a person while eyes can tell you the emotion they are feeling. The hands and eyes can never they, and they are the best way to get to know a person.
Hands and eyes
Lennie and George are the primary characters of Of Mice and Men and their physical appearances, much like their personalities are vastly different. George is a short man with strong hands and restless, sharp eyes. This shows how he is the leader of their pair, a strong worker, but still skeptical of the world around them, mostly likely because most people cannot understand what is "wrong" with Lennie. Lennie in contrast is a large, shapeless man with large hands constantly compared to paws, lumbering and clumsy, and innocent, near vacant eyes. This enforces Lennie's innocent but unintentionally violent nature.
For the most part, Lennie and George's descriptions are straight forward and direct descriptions of their personalities. Curly and his wife on the other hand (no pun intended) have more meaning in their eyes and hands. First is Curly, his hands represent the primal urges of man: violence and sex. One of his hand's is gruff, it is used for fighting, while the other he keeps in a Vaseline filled glove he claims is for his wife which is used for sex. As the story goes on and Lennie crushes his hand, this is representative of Curly loosing his fighting ability and sexual power. Next is Curly's wife, she has delicate, small hands with painted finger nails and wide set, large eyes. Her description is not just to show that she does minimal manual labor or to make her out as a tart, but also to show her a sexual possession as that is nearly half of her husband's personality.
Crooks is the black stable buck. He is mysterious and elusive although not to entirely his own making. Like his personality he is described physically with equal intensity. He has deep set eyes described by the author as "eyes lay deep back in his head, becuase of the depth they glitter with intensity (page 67)." Crooks also wear spectacles which would suggest he is smarter than he seems and he should be with all the time he spends by himself.
Following Crooks is Slim, a man with God eyes. The author uses that phrase to describe Slim's eyes because he is an aloof man who through his silent observation seems to see more than he actually does. The other farm hands do not question him or his ways becuase his eyes hold such a quite intensity that it would be frightening for others who do not know him. Besides his eyes are his large, lean hands that can only be achieved through hard work that he surely does.
Lastly are the characters that are not as well described by their hands and eyes: Candy and Carlson. Candy is described slightly more by saying his only has a stump on the end of one arm from an accident that happened on the ranch a few years ago, but other than that, his eyes are not described. One can infer that he, from his older age, has more glazed over pupils and wrinkles around the edges. This is just like you can infer about Carlson, whose eyes and hands are not described, that he has wrinkles around his eyes not from age, but from constant frowning, and that his hands are strong and calloused like Slim for his hard work.
For the most part, Lennie and George's descriptions are straight forward and direct descriptions of their personalities. Curly and his wife on the other hand (no pun intended) have more meaning in their eyes and hands. First is Curly, his hands represent the primal urges of man: violence and sex. One of his hand's is gruff, it is used for fighting, while the other he keeps in a Vaseline filled glove he claims is for his wife which is used for sex. As the story goes on and Lennie crushes his hand, this is representative of Curly loosing his fighting ability and sexual power. Next is Curly's wife, she has delicate, small hands with painted finger nails and wide set, large eyes. Her description is not just to show that she does minimal manual labor or to make her out as a tart, but also to show her a sexual possession as that is nearly half of her husband's personality.
Crooks is the black stable buck. He is mysterious and elusive although not to entirely his own making. Like his personality he is described physically with equal intensity. He has deep set eyes described by the author as "eyes lay deep back in his head, becuase of the depth they glitter with intensity (page 67)." Crooks also wear spectacles which would suggest he is smarter than he seems and he should be with all the time he spends by himself.
Following Crooks is Slim, a man with God eyes. The author uses that phrase to describe Slim's eyes because he is an aloof man who through his silent observation seems to see more than he actually does. The other farm hands do not question him or his ways becuase his eyes hold such a quite intensity that it would be frightening for others who do not know him. Besides his eyes are his large, lean hands that can only be achieved through hard work that he surely does.
Lastly are the characters that are not as well described by their hands and eyes: Candy and Carlson. Candy is described slightly more by saying his only has a stump on the end of one arm from an accident that happened on the ranch a few years ago, but other than that, his eyes are not described. One can infer that he, from his older age, has more glazed over pupils and wrinkles around the edges. This is just like you can infer about Carlson, whose eyes and hands are not described, that he has wrinkles around his eyes not from age, but from constant frowning, and that his hands are strong and calloused like Slim for his hard work.
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