Every book has one important aspect that stands out from the rest. It could be the setting, the characters, or the difficult struggles and situations that the characters are faced with. In the book Of Mice and Men, the setting was the most important factor. .
The book Of Mice and Men is set in the late 1930's. If the setting wasn't in the late 1930's, Lennie would most likely be instutionalized. Today people with mental handicaps are either take care of in a group home, or caregivers live with them in a family home. Lennie had neither. George took over responsibility of Lennie when Lennie's Aunt Clara died. In present times, a person such as Lennie would be turned over to the state, and the state would then take care of him.
Lennie and George constantly wandered from town to town in search of jobs. Most of the time it wasn't a very good arrangement. When George finally secured a job of some sort, Lennie would invariably do something to make them lose their jobs. Such as the situation that occurred in Weed. Lennie wanted to touch a girl's dress because it looked soft. He grabbed onto it, but when the girl got frightened and tried to pull away, it ripped her dress. The girl then screamed, causing George and Lennie to have to hide in a drainage ditch all day while people were scouring the town for them. After that incident, George and Lennie simply left town and got another job. In the past that would have worked out for the pair. Nowadays, however, people would have heard about the incident cities away. Lennie and George's picture would have been plastered all over the town, and they would have been spotted, caught, and put on trial.
The last place that George and Lennie worked was at a Ranch. Lennie also ran into trouble there. Lennie was in a barn trying to hide a puppy he accidentally killed when Curley's wife came in. They talked awhile, and Curley's wife invited Lennie to pet her hair because it was so soft.
