SECTION 3

1. SECTION 3 Everyone is expected to: Read the summary. Complete the short answer questions from Tuesday. Draw the spider-diagram. Write the paragraph. Some students may: Consider George’s comments about Curley’s wife.

2. Section 3 George and Slim, Candy’s dog(from start of section to ‘…back to the wall again’) • George confides in Slim. • Lennie is delighted with his pup. • Carlson persuades Candy that his old dog should be shot. George thanks Slim for giving Lennie a pup. Slim comments on George and Lennie travelling together, and hears how George came to feel responsible for Lennie. George confesses that he ‘used to have a hell of a lot of fun’ with Lennie, playing jokes on him and looking clever by comparison with him. As George confides in Slim, we learn why he and Lennie had to leave Weed: Lennie frightened a girl by touching her dress and fearfully clinging onto it when she ‘lets out a squawk’. The girl claimed she had been raped and the two men had to escape a lynching party. Carlson complains about Candy’s old dog, saying that he ‘stinks’ and is no use to anyone, or even to himself. Candy defends the dog, and George tries to change the subject for Candy’s sake, but Carlson won’t be put off. The subject is suspended when Whit comes in and shows Slim a letter in a Western magazine. There follows a moment of great dramatic intensity after Carlson finally persuades Candy to let him shoot his old dog. Carlson leads the dog out to his death. The men’s awkward attempts to make conversation repeatedly fall into silence — until finally a shot sounds and we know the dog is dead. (For a detailed analysis of this scene, see the accompanying Philip Allan Literature Guide.) Crooks finally appears, telling Slim that Lennie is handling the pups too much. When Whit speaks admiringly of Curley’s wife, George at first refuses to be drawn. However, when Whit says she can’t leave ‘the guys’ alone, and adds that ‘Curley’s pants is just crawlin’ with ants’ (he is uncomfortably jealous), George voices his fears.

3. SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS: • At what time of day does the section begin? • Why did George stop playing jokes on Lennie? • What event led to the start of Lennie and George’s friendship? • What piece of information does Carlson give us about Crooks? • What line reveals that Whit finds Curley’s wife attractive? • Why does Carlson take a shovel with him?

4. In your manuscripts create a spider-diagram about what happened in Weed. Label it as below.

5. In your manuscripts write the heading ‘Girl in a red dress’. Use the questions below to write a paragraph. You don’t have to PEE.

6. EXTENSION ACTIVITY: • Suggest what George means when he says, of Curley’s wife, ‘She’s gonna make a mess. They’re gonna be a bad mess about her.’ • Could this be anything to do with Lennie?

7. CANDY’S DOG • The incident of the dog’s death is important in a number of ways. Suggest what it reveals about each of the characters involved — Slim, Carlson, George and Candy. Write a PEE response with a different PEE for each character. What does this suggest about how people viewed old age?

9. CANDY’S DOG