SPOILER ALERT! Did you spot the extended metaphors as well? PART II

I’m so excited, I can hardly contain myself!

FIRST OFF…THIS IS A SPOILER!

Referring to the post I recently put up about an extended metaphor entitled, “Did you spot the extended metaphors as well,” I opened up a discussion on a comparison between how Candy’s dog and Lennie were killed.

After re-reading Mrs. Griffin’s post on “Follow the LOGOS ;)”, rereading my post, and linking the comments together, I had an incredible epiphany!

I made a connection between the posts that Mrs. Griffin and I post up.

Why did John Steinbeck purposefully repeat the sudden deaths of animals that all later led to the sudden death of Lennie? John Steinbeck wanted to make a very clear comparison. He wanted to show that Lennie views the world just like an animal. His mental condition renders him impaired in many things that humans are capable of. Yes, he does act childlike. We conclude this because of our experiences, right? What do we know about children? Children are pure, naïve, and helpless because of their lack of experience. Children tend to mimic. Children tend to forget. Children tend to be irresponsible because they forget because of how unimportant it all seems, but as a child grows older, he/she breaks through that mental block and develops into maturity. Why is this? It is because, they remember through trial-and-error. (which, by the way, is one of the best ways to learn. Even though, I must admit, that it is also one of the hardest hurdles to overcome.) They have all of these experiences locked into their brain, so that they can always refer back to it like a memory bank.

Knowing this, let us go back to Lennie, who is an adult with a brain that functions like a child’s. He is in a perpetual state of memory loss; therefore, he cannot go through life like an average adult. In essence, Lennie is a child because he has a mind of a child.

Extended metaphors throughout OMM are interrelated.Let’s take it a step deeper. Delve into the comparison and you will see that Lennie not only acts childlike, but he also contains a few characteristics that can be compared to animals in general. This proves my point when Mrs. Griffin’s post on logos says, “…animals live only in the moment/present,” and when I realized that Lennie is also bounded to only the present because of his mental condition.

I also made two diagrams about the metaphors, but I can't seem to be able to put it up. If you want to see it, just ask me. Thank you.

Did you spot the extended metaphors as well?

Assuming everyone already has read the book, I want to discuss a particular extended metaphor that I feel is critical in the novel, “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck. I’m back-tracking a bit here when I ask, what is an extended metaphor? An extended metaphor is a metaphor that is developed at great length, occurring frequently in or throughout a work.
The extended metaphor which I think is vital in this story is the metaphor between how Candy’s old dog was killed (put to sleep), and how Lennie was killed. They were both killed the same way and the circumstances are similar. What is the significance of this comparison? How can Lennie be compared to the dog? Why do you think John Steinbeck made this extended metaphor clear?