Early on in Native Son, Bigger watches a pigeon “strutting to and fro with ruffled feathers, its fat neck bobbing with regal pride.” After watching the bird, Bigger says to his friend Gus, “Now, if only I could do that.” This scene can be compared to an idea from Beloved, in which Paul D has been dehumanized to the point that he feels like a rooster named Mister has more dignity than he does.
Native Son – 1
Of Mice and Men – 1
The first description of Lennie emphasizes his animal-like characteristics. He is described as having “sloping shoulders” and he “walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws.” When he stops to drink from a lake, Steinbeck writes that he “flung himself down and drank from the surface of the green pool…snorting into the water like a horse.” In this same scene, Lennie’s hand is described as a “paw.”
Of Mice and Men – 2
When Lennie tries to keep a mouse hidden in his pocket, away from George, Steinbeck compares him to a dog, writing, “Slowly, like a terrier who doesn’t want to bring a ball to his master, Lennie approached, drew back, approached again.”
Of Mice and Men – 4
After he loses his temper at Lennie, the solution George imagines is one that dehumanizes his friend. He says, “I wisht I could put you in a cage with about a million mice an’ let you have fun.”
Of Mice and Men – 8
The black “stable buck,” Crooks, threatens Lennie’s sense of security by asking cruel hypothetical questions. After asking Lennie what he’ll do if George abandons him, Crooks answers the question for himself, saying, “Want me ta tell ya what’ll happen? They’ll take ya to the booby hatch. They’ll tie ya up with a collar, like a dog.” This point reinforces the animal-like way in which Lennie is characterized throughout the novel. But the fact that Crooks himself is referred to as a “stable buck” is somewhat dehumanizing as well, so one interpretation of this scene might be that Crooks abuses Lennie because misery loves company.
Of Mice and Men – 11
When Lennie accidentally kills Curley’s wife, Candy says, “You don’t know that Curley. Curley gon’ta wanta get ‘im lynched.” This reference to lynching creates an association between dehumanized Lennie, who’s often described as if he’s an animal, and black people who were dehumanized, described as if they are animals and lynched.
Of Mice and Men – 12
The last description of Lennie is unmistakably animalistic. Steinbeck writes, “Lennie came quietly to the pool’s edge. He knelt down and drank, barely touching his lips to the water,” and when a bird makes a noise, “his head jerked up and he strained toward the sound with eyes and ears until he saw the bird, and then he dropped his head and drank again.”