"Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck is a novel involving two extremely different protagonists. George is a reasonably intelligent and hardworking ranchman. Lennie on the other hand always manages to find trouble. He is equally as hardworking and honest as George, although he is mentally challenged. Despite this, George and Lennie have one thing that unites them as close as any bond can. This is that they both share the same dream of owning their own ranch. After many hardworking years, moving from ranch to ranch, living in complete poverty and working for a very low wage, they finally try to achieve this long dream. They develop a friendship that makes them complementary and co-dependent on each other. .
The type of lifestyles of the other ranch hands is very lonely. Steinbeck writes the novel, using third person narrative to show how emotionally remote the characters are and to show that they do not know people intimately.
"A path beaten hard by boys", this is emphasizing the worn out path in the forest, of which many men pass through, moving from ranch to ranch. This shows what temporary lives the ranchmen live, which can also be described as nomadic. George and Lennie have a very strong friendship, and travel together to keep each other company.
Because they are so different, they use each other's strong points to help them. What one is lacking the other has ample amount of. They are a perfect example of how opposites attract. Together they travel from place to place looking for their chance at making their dream a reality and without one another, they would have absolutely no chance at success. An example of this is when they go for the job interview. Lennie helps George to be accepted because of his brawn, while George does the talking. This is because Lennie would not be able to answer questions correctly, without showing that he is retarded. Thus George tells him not to talk during the preliminary encounter, "You ain't gonna say a word.