There are many references to an incident in the town of
Weed. George does not really know what happened because he was some distance away when
the girl started screaming. Then he and Lennie had to run for their lives, so the only
report he got was from Lennie. And Lennie is always lying to George. Lennie claims he
only wanted to feel the fabric of the girl's dress. This was bad enough, but George
realizes later that Lennie is developing an interest in sex and that his strong interest
in petting soft little animals has only been a budding interest in sex which Lennie was
too simple-minded to understand. Then when he begins petting Curley's wife's hair in the
barn, he evidently becomes sexually aroused and would have gone as far as raping the
girl if she hadn't started screaming and struggling. It is very significant that George
says the following words when he sees the dead girl lying in the hay in the
barn:
"I
should of knew," George said hopelessly. "I guess maybe way back in my head I
did."
The reader, too, should
know that Lennie is going to keep molesting young girls and that he is potentially a
serial killer. George can't be with him all the time. George wasn't with him when he
frightened the girl in Weed, and George wasn't with him when he killed Curley's wife in
the barn. (George doesn't really know, as the reader knows, what happened in the barn.
It looks very much like an accidental killing in connection with an attempted rape--and
that is actually very close to being the truth.) Lennie may be mentally retarded, but he
has a normal male sex drive which he doesn't understand and can't control. His enormous
physical strength makes him especially dangerous.
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