John Steinbeck didn't just write a book about the Great Depression. He wrote a gut-punch. If you're looking for an Of Mice and Men summary chapter by chapter breakdown, you're probably trying to wrap your head around why two guys—one small and sharp, the other huge and "childlike"—are wandering around California with a dead mouse in a pocket. It's weird. It's dusty. And honestly, it’s one of the most devastating things you’ll ever read in a high school English class or on your own time.
The story is tight. Six chapters. That’s it. Steinbeck actually wrote it as a "play-novelette," meaning each chapter feels like a scene in a play. There’s no fluff here. Just a heavy, looming sense of dread that starts in a clearing by the Salinas River and ends... well, back in that same clearing.
Chapter 1: The Dream and the Dead Mouse
We start at the Salinas River. It’s beautiful, but there’s an edge to it. We meet George Milton and Lennie Small. The irony is immediate: Lennie is a massive man, but his last name is Small. George is the brains; Lennie is the brawn. But Lennie has an intellectual disability that makes him dangerously strong without knowing it.
George is rightfully frustrated. He’s been looking after Lennie for a long time, and it’s cost him jobs. They’re on the run from a town called Weed because Lennie wanted to touch a girl’s soft dress, she got scared, and things spiraled. George finds out Lennie is carrying a dead mouse in his pocket just so he can pet it with his thumb while they walk. It’s gross, sure, but it shows Lennie’s obsession with "soft things," which is a massive red flag for later.
They talk about the dream. You know the one. The little house, the couple of acres, the cows, the pigs, and—most importantly for Lennie—the rabbits. "Tell me about the rabbits, George." It’s their ritual. It keeps them going. George tells Lennie that if he ever gets into trouble at the new ranch, he needs to come back to this specific spot by the river and hide in the brush.
Chapter 2: The Tall Shadows of the Bunkhouse
They get to the ranch near Soledad. The bunkhouse is sparse, cruel, and smells like linoleum and soap. We meet the cast of characters who populate this lonely world. There’s Candy, the old swamper with one hand and an even older, smelly dog. There’s the Boss, who’s suspicious of why George is doing all the talking for Lennie.
Then comes Curley.
Curley is the Boss’s son, a "handy" lightweight boxer with a massive chip on his shoulder. He hates big guys. He sees Lennie and immediately wants to pick a fight. He’s also recently married to a woman who is never given a name in the book—she’s just "Curley’s wife." She’s "purty," she wears red mules with ostrich feathers, and she’s bored out of her mind. George sees the danger immediately. He tells Lennie to stay away from her.
"She’s a rat-trap," George says. He’s not wrong.
Chapter 3: The Death of a Dog and a Hand
This is where the tension starts to boil. Slim, the "mule skinner" and the only truly respected man on the ranch, gives Lennie one of his dog's new puppies. Lennie is over the moon. Meanwhile, the bunkhouse is tense. Carlson, a callous ranch hand, can’t stand the smell of Candy’s old dog anymore. He pressures Candy into letting him shoot the dog in the back of the head.
The silence in the bunkhouse while they wait for the shot is deafening.
Later, Candy overhears George and Lennie talking about their farm. He wants in. He has money saved up from his injury settlement. Suddenly, the dream isn’t just a story—it’s actually possible. They could buy the place in a month!
But then Curley storms in, looking for his wife. He’s humiliated, looking for someone to take it out on, and he chooses Lennie, who is just sitting there smiling about the rabbits. Curley starts whaling on him. Lennie doesn't fight back until George yells, "Get 'im, Lennie!"
Lennie catches Curley’s fist and literally crushes it. Every bone. Slim tells Curley that if he tries to get George and Lennie fired, they’ll tell everyone how he actually got his hand mangled. Curley agrees to say it got caught in a machine.
Chapter 4: Crooks and the Reality Check
This chapter is a detour into the stable buck’s room. Crooks is the only Black man on the ranch, and because of Jim Crow-era segregation, he lives alone in the harness room. He’s bitter, lonely, and incredibly sharp.
Lennie wanders in. Then Candy. For a brief moment, these three outcasts—the "weak ones"—talk about the farm. Even Crooks starts to believe in it. But then Curley’s wife walks in. She’s looking for company, but she uses her power to belittle them. When Crooks tries to stand up to her, she reminds him that she could have him lynched with a single word.
The dream shatters. Crooks realizes that guys like them never get the land. "Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land," he says. It’s the most cynical, honest moment in the book.
Chapter 5: The Puppy and the Red Dress
It’s Sunday afternoon. The other guys are playing horseshoes outside. Lennie is in the barn, alone. He’s staring at his puppy. It’s dead. He hit it too hard because it tried to bite him, and now he’s terrified George won’t let him tend the rabbits.
Curley’s wife enters. She’s lonely and starts telling Lennie about her lost dreams of being a movie star. She doesn't realize the danger she's in. She lets Lennie stroke her hair because it's soft. But Lennie gets too excited, his grip tightens, and she starts to scream. In a panic to keep her quiet so George won't hear, Lennie shakes her.
He breaks her neck.
He realizes he’s done a "bad thing" and heads for the river. Candy finds the body, then George. George knows it’s over. The dream is dead. Curley finds out and forms a lynch mob to find Lennie and kill him painfully.
Chapter 6: The Salinas River Revisited
Lennie is back at the brush by the river. He’s having hallucinations—a giant rabbit and his Aunt Clara are scolding him. George finds him. He’s not mad; he’s just defeated.
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He hears the mob approaching. He tells Lennie to look across the river and imagine the farm. One last time, he tells the story of the rabbits. While Lennie is smiling, picturing the alfalfa and the "fata the lan’," George takes Carlson’s Luger pistol.
George shoots Lennie in the back of the head. It’s a mercy killing, done to save him from the brutal death Curley had planned.
When the men arrive, Slim is the only one who understands the weight of what George just did. He leads a shell-shocked George away for a drink. The book ends with Carlson and Curley looking on, wondering: "Now what the hell suppresses them two?" They have no empathy. They don't get it.
Critical Analysis: What You Need to Know
When writing or studying an Of Mice and Men summary chapter guide, you have to look at the foreshadowing. Steinbeck is a master of it.
- The Mouse (Ch. 1) -> The Puppy (Ch. 5) -> Curley’s Wife (Ch. 5): The escalation of Lennie’s accidental violence is a straight line.
- Candy’s Dog (Ch. 3) -> Lennie (Ch. 6): The dog was shot in the same spot with the same gun for the same reason—it was no longer able to survive in a harsh world.
Actionable Insights for Your Next Reading
If you're reading this for a class or a book club, don't just look at what happens. Look at why it happens.
- Trace the "Loneliness" Theme: Notice how every character (Crooks, Candy, Curley's wife) explicitly mentions being lonely. George and Lennie are the only ones who aren't, until the very end.
- Analyze the Hands: Hands are mentioned constantly. Curley's gloved hand, Lennie's "paws," Candy's missing hand. They represent a person's ability to work and their value in a capitalist society.
- Check the Color Red: Curley’s wife is always associated with red (her dress, her mules, her lips). In literature, that's usually a signal for danger or passion—here, it’s both.
To truly master the text, try mapping the characters' power dynamics. Who has the most power in Chapter 4? Who has the least? You'll find that power shifts based on who else is in the room, making the ranch a microcosm of the 1930s American social hierarchy.