Other characters

John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men features a number of secondary characters who play an important role in the development of the plot. The other characters all live on the farm where George and Lennie come to work.

Candy

Candy is an older farmworker who lost his hand in an accident on the farm (p. 56). He has an old dog which he’s had since the dog was a puppy. The other men tell Candy they should shoot the dog, who smells and is too old to do anything. Candy feels pressured into agreeing; he does not express any emotion but is clearly devastated: “ ‘Awright – take ‘im.’ He did not look down at the dog at all. He lay back on his bunk and crossed his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling.” (p. 46)

Candy is worried that when he becomes useless to the ranch, he will be kicked out like his dog: 

He said miserably: ‘You seen what they done to my dog to-night? They says he wasn’t no good to himself nor nobody else. When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me. But they won’t do nothing like that. I won’t have no place to go, an’ I ...