Of Mice & Men – is Lennie autistic?

Written on 28th Nov 2017 by Alex Lowery

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How many of you have read, watched or listened to the story called ‘Of Mice and Men’ by John Steinbeck? It’s an excellent story about two men who travel together. One of the men is called Lennie. He is a huge man and very strong. The other is a slender and shorter man called George. The story highly implies that Lennie has an Intellectual Disability and George is basically his carer. Lennie really struggles to remember basic everyday things that most people would take for granted and George has to help him to remember them. When I come to listen to the Audiobook, it also appears to me like Lennie also displays many of the signs of autism. It’s clear that Lennie does have an Intellectual Disability, but I also wonder if he would meet the diagnostic criteria for autism. Below are a list of traits that could indicate Lennie is somewhere on the spectrum.

Lennie loves to touch all things soft like mice, dogs, rabbits and other things. This is often an autistic like characteristic. Many autistic people can be sensitive to certain things that they touch, but they can also adore the feeling of other things. I’m autistic and I love to feel soft animals, and as a child I always loved the feeling of velvet and would always want to touch it. I also remember liking my mother’s soft furry slippers. I also know of other autistics who simply adore the feeling of soft coats and other sensations.

Lennie appears to get very fixated and obsessed over certain things and pays no attention to anything else. This is very much a Classic autistic characteristic. For example; George tells Lennie that one day they will build their own ranch with animals and Lennie will get to tend the rabbits. Once he’s been told this, Lennie is constantly obsessed and completely fixated on the idea of getting this ranch started. It’s like that’s all he thinks about and he loses sight of everything else. Another autistic trait is to focus on one thing.

Lennie appears to have a very good memory for set things but a very poor memory for everything else. For example, a lot of the things that Lennie doesn’t think about (that aren’t a fixation of his) he seems to forget within a matter of minutes, but there are other things that he seems to remember in great detail for a long time. He remembers many of the things George tells him about their hopes and dreams. He also remembers a lot of George’s speech about ‘how his life would be so much easier if he didn’t have to look after Lennie’. It seems as though Lennie is also able to use echolalia considering how well he can recite a lot of what George tells him. Again, this is another trait of ASC.

Lennie tends to ask the same thing again and again. A lot of autistic people (particularly children) tend to ask the same questions again and again. In my experience (obviously I can’t speak for everyone) this isn’t that they keep forgetting the answers to the questions in most cases, but rather that they love to hear the answers. Hearing set answers can be very satisfying. I did this a lot as a kid, and I even still do now sometimes ask a question because I want to hear the answer even if I know it. This is very like Lennie when he continuously asked George to tell him about the his plan that involved them owning a ranch with rabbits, etc. Lennie remembered it just as well as George did, but he loved hearing George speak about it so he would ask him to repeat it again and again. Hearing the plan from George’s mouth made him very excited. So that is another example of how Lennie seems to have autistic traits.

Lennie also doesn’t appear to be fully in control of his own body. This is probably more a trait of dyspraxia, but there are a lot of crossovers. When Lennie petted all the animals, he killed them. He didn’t mean to, but he just didn’t have enough control over his hands from being overly rough with them. I’ve not quite killed any furry creatures, but I have broken things because I’ve not had full control over my own strength.

There is a line in the book that even indicates that Lennie Stims. It speaks about certain hand gestures Lennie used. Stimming for those of you who don’t know is short for ‘self stimulatory behaviour’ and is a common feature for a lot of autistics.

So that was my list. Of Mice & Men was published back in 1937. I don’t believe autism was even a diagnosis yet at that point in time. It’s quite obvious that Lennie has an Intellectual Disability at least. In my opinion; he does appear to have autistic traits. This of course doesn’t automatically make him autistic because a lot of Intellectually disabled people in general have autistic tendencies, but only some of them would also get diagnosed with autism. I certainly think Lennie does have autistic traits. What do you think? If you’ve read Of Mice & Men, feel free to give me your opinion in the comments.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this article.  

 

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