The characterisation of Slim

L.O To understand the main Aos for the Unit 1 exam and revise the character of Slim.

OF MICE AND MEN

WJEC English Literature Unit 1, Section A: Prose (different cultures)Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

• Assessment Objectives

• AO1

• Respond to texts critically and imaginatively; select and evaluate relevant textual detail to illustrate and support interpretations

• AO2

• Explain how language, structure and form contribute to writers’ presentation of ideas, themes and settings

• AO4

• Relate texts to their social, cultural and historical contexts; explain how texts have been influential and significant to self and other readers in different contexts and at different times

• You have to answer two questions on the play.• Part (a) is based on a short extract and will be marked out

of ten using AO1 and AO2.

• For part (b) OR part (c) you will have to write an essay on the novella.

• You will have a choice of two essay titles. Your essay will be marked out of twenty using AO1 and AO4.

• You are NOT allowed to take copies of the play into the examination.

• You will have one hour to complete both of your answers on Of Mice and Men. (Don’t forget, this is just one section of a two-hour exam.)

• You should spend about 20 minutes on part (a) and about 40 minutes on part (b) OR part (c).

WJEC Question Mark / AO1 AO2 AO3 AO4

Unit 1,

Section

A

a) / 10 5 5

b) OR c) / 20 7 13

•A notional indication of how the marks are allocated across the Assessment

Objectives can be found in the table below.

•In practice, however, examiners will give an overall mark based on appropriate

coverage of each Assessment Objective.

Slim is above the other workers on the ranch

• Not just a hired labourer, but a craftsman; the jerklineskinner (lead mule-team driver) at the ranch. He is excellent at his job.

• He has an almost god-like status is “the prince of the ranch”and he is regarded as an authority. We know little else about him, which gives him a slightly mysterious quality. ‘George looked over at Slim and saw the calm, Godlike eyes fastened on him.’

• He has a quiet dignity: he doesn't need to assert himself to have authority.

• "there was a gravity in his manner and a quiet so profound that all talked stopped when he spoke. His authority was so great that his word was taken on any subject, be it politics or love."

He is a figure of stability and calmness:For most of the novel he is a detached figure who observes Lennie's and George's relationship. At one point he is called to make a judgment, when he decides that Candy's dog should be shot. ‘Candy looked helplessly at him, for Slim’s opinions were law’

He is used as a narrative device by SteinbeckBy listening to George in the ranch house, Slim allows him to reveal a great deal about his relations with Lennie, and to describe incidents from their past.

He understands the relationship between George and Lennie. He helps George at the end and reassures George that he did the right thing.

His first appearance – in Part 2A tall man stood in the doorway. He held a crushed Stetson hat under his arm while he combed his long, black, damp hair straight back. Like the others he wore blue jeans and a short denim jacket. When he had finished combing his hair he moved into the room, and he moved with a majesty achieved only by royalty and master craftsmen. He was a jerkline skinner, the prince of the ranch, capable of driving ten, sixteen, even twenty mules with a single line to the leaders. He was capable of killing a fly on the wheeler’s butt with a bull whip without touching the mule. There was a gravity in his manner and a quiet so profound that all talk stopped when he spoke. His authority was so great that his word was taken on any subject, be it politics or love. This was Slim, the jerkline skinner. His hatchet face was ageless. He might have been thirty-five or fifty. His ear heard more than was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought. His hands, large and lean, were as delicate in their action as those of a temple dancer. He smoothed out his crushed hat, creased it in the middle and put it on. He looked kindly at the two in the bunk house.

What this tells us…

•The romanticised description is used by Steinbeck to build the image of an ideal – he represents the ‘master craftsman’ a breed that was rapidly dying out in the west due to the advance of agricultural machinery.

•He remains distant from the other characters and we learn very little about him and his hopes: ‘His hatchet face was ageless. He might have been thirty-five or fifty. His ear heard more than was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought.’

•His agelessness and the lack of solid information about him shows he is an archetype rather than a real character.

Authority• He is seen as ‘royalty’ ‘the prince of the ranch’ and the others look up to him with unquestioning awe. Yet he is godlike in his power – only on occasions when there is no option does he wield it.

In the scene before Candy’s dog is killed (he decides it should die; linking to godlike status, he can decide who dies)

After the fight – he silences Curly.

He tries to help George protect Lennie from Curley after he has killed Curley’s wife.

Kindness

• He shows a mildness and affinity with animals that is described with admiration ‘He was capable of killing a fly on the wheeler’s butt with a bull whip without touching the mule.’ ‘Crooks said. “Maybe Slim. Slim comes in sometimes two, three times a night. Slim’s a real skinner. He looks out for his team.”

• Slim treats other characters with respect ‘He looked kindly at the two in the bunk house’ and is one of the few characters who shows respect to Crooks.

Symbols ‘hands’

• Hands are an important symbol in the novel they represent the workers power and can cause destruction.

• Candy’s missing hand is a symbol of his uselessness. Curley, who had previously taken care of his hand with the ‘glove fulla’ vaseline’, loses the use of his hand in the fight with Lennie. It is at this point that he is unable to take control and it is Slim who control’s the situation after the fight.

• ‘His hands, large and lean, were as delicate in their action as those of a temple dancer’ Slim’s powerful yet ‘delicate’ hands symbolise his importance on the ranch.

Sample responses on the character: Extract question

Wisdom

• ‘Slim looked through George and beyond him’ suggests he has a vision which the other characters lack.

• ‘Slim stood up slowly and with dignity.’

• Slim reached up over the card table and turned on the tin-shaded electric light. Instantly the table was brilliant with light, and the cone of the shade threw its brightness straight downward, leaving the corners of the bunk house still in dusk.’ Light is a symbol of hope in the novella –Curley’s wife cuts out the light…

“I seen her give Slim the eye. Slim’sa jerkline skinner. Hell of a nice fella.Slim don’t need to

wear no high-heeled boots on a grain

team.”

“Hi, Slim,” she said.Slim’s voice came through the door. “Hi, Good-lookin’.”“I’m tryin’ to find Curley, Slim.”“Well, you ain’t tryin’ very hard. I seen him goin’ in your house.”She was suddenly apprehensive. “’Bye, boys,” she called into the bunkhouse, and she hurried away.’

“George fell silent. He wanted to talk.Slim neither encouraged nor discouraged

him. He just sat back quiet andreceptive.” – His nature encourages others

to trust and confide in him.

Context and SlimDuring the American depression workers with a steady job were rare. Slim represents a dying breed.

He has been unaffected by the Great Depression as he keeps a steady job – however he is alone, and has no family to speak of. Like the other workers his only contact with women is when he visits the ‘flophouse’ in town. He seems to share their low opinion of women although he is one of the few men who treats Curley’s wife with anything other than fear.

context• Steinbeck admired many of the particular ‘community’

qualities inherent in the ‘old ways’ of cowboy ranch life – he came from Soledad himself and had seen it at first hand; by the mid-1930s however, he saw that this traditional way of life was being warped and threatened by what he perceived to be the increasing greed for profit of the farm owners (capitalism – where costs are reduced to a minimum, and profits are maximised), by the influx of cheap labour created by the Great Depression and the Great Dust Bowl, and by the increasing mechanisation of farm work.

• The characters in the story form a kind of moral hierarchy both directly and indirectly.

• Slim represents this idealised American cowboy – he is a fixture on the ranch and his agricultural

Slim embodies the good qualities of an agricultural way of life

• Steinbeck felt that many of the enduring good qualities in the old agricultural way of life were still apparent, qualities of behaviour that relied on modes of ritual shown through particular courtesies, acts of playfulness, games, the devoted enjoyment of natural processes, an admiring concern for sexuality, a pattern of warm-hearted appreciation of goodness that is completely outside of any concern for property or wealth.

• Such ritualistic descriptions within the novel (‘setting down’ to talk together, the sharing of food and drink, the game of horse shoes, and so on) act as a kind of ‘symbolic shorthand’ to help the careful reader understand a character, his actions and ways of thinking and living more fully. Steinbeck believed strongly in the influence of myth and archetype (Carl Jung, the eminent 20 century psychoanalyst, developed and proposed these ideas - that certain all-pervading human thought patterns and ways of behaviour were universal and ancient in origin. It was as if such ways of thinking emanated from a kind of ‘universal genetic pool of thought’. Jung termed this, mankind’s ‘collective unconscious’. Such archetypes create particular patterns of thought and have their origin in ancient myths, stories and legends: stories of good versus evil, of the brave warrior, the evil dragon, the wicked witch, the temptress, the happy family, and so on). Steinbeck felt that such universally held ideas were important to the way humanity behaved and he incorporated some of these ideas within this simple story because he knew the power they have on readers of all ages.

Themes and Slim• The American Dream – Slim is one of the few characters

without an obvious dream, his distance from such follies could link to Steinbeck’s own view of the distructive nature of these dreams.

• Nature and survival of the fittest - Slim linked to nature and is one of the few characters who has no physical or mental scarring at the end of the novella: Did the fittest survive?

• Power and powerlessness – Slim’s power comes from his skill on the ranch which places him towards the top of the hierarchy and gives him respect from all other characters, even those above him such as Curley and The Boss.