Of Mice and Men: Understanding the Personality Disorder

The movie Of Mice and Men is about two men, George and Lennie, who were seeking work on a ranch so they could eventually carry out their dream of having their own ranch (Of Mice and Men). The first time I watched this movie I was a sophomore in high school. We had to read the book and then we watched the movie for our english class. In the movie, Lennie had a mental condition, which affected his mind and altered his way of thinking. This mental condition is due to a personality disorder, which categorizes him in the odd or eccentric cluster (pg. 633).

Lennie has a schizotypal personality disorder, meaning he shows social deficits and oddities of thinking, perception, and communication that resembles schizophrenia (pg. 633). There are a few scenes that show the oddities of Lennie's schizotypal personality disorder. Lennie loved mice so whenever he saw a mouse he picked it up and held it or put it in his pocket. If George didn't catch Lennie with the mouse Lennie would usually kill it, not on purpose but because the mouse tried to get away (Of Mice and Men). This depicts his oddities of thinking and perception (pg. 633). Lennie also shows his oddities of thinking and perception during the scene of him and a woman who lived on the ranch (pg. 633).

After a while working at the new ranch, Lennie killed a woman because she tried to get away when he touched her hair. He wasn't trying to harm her, he just wanted to touch her hair; he thought it was soft. She didn't like it so she tried to fight him off and get away but he didn't want her to (Of Mice and Men). Lennie didn't talk to many people, most the time it was only George. If someone asked them any questions, George was the one doing the talking. When George and Lennie got to the ranch to start working, the owner noticed that George was the only one that answered his questions.

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George had made sure he told Lennie to let him do the talking so he didn't say anything about what happened at their previous job (Of Mice and Men). He didn't have a great way of communicating with people and being social (pg. 633). Lennie always stayed with George because he trusted George and he knew he would be safe if he was with him. At the end of the movie after Lennie killed the woman, he ran away. Everyone on the ranch was out to kill Lennie and George knew that if they found him they would torture him for killing that woman. George found Lennie where he told them to hide if something went wrong, in the bushes. This also shows Lennie's way of communication because of the way he reacted to the woman trying to get away from him (pg. 633).

George started telling a story about their future that Lennie loved to hear but this time George had him close his eyes. When he got to the end he pulled out a gun and shot him. If George would have let him live, Lennie would have been tortured if the men found him and he would have died if he went on without George (Of Mice and Men). Lennie's personality and actions were easier to understand after reading through chapter fifteen. The three clusters and the information supplied within the context helped me to figure out exactly what type of disorder Lennie had. The personality disorder that Lennie had was portrayed well in the movie as well as our psychology book.

John Malkovich acted Lennie's character out so well and he didn't go out of character at all. How he acted Lennie out was very realistic, like Malkovich really did have a personality disorder. Him as a person seemed to match Lennie as a character of the movie. This movie was directed very well and the characters in the movie all did a fantastic job acting. I would watch this movie again because it stayed interesting the entire time.

There were points in the movie that were scary and sometimes even sad but it was never bad enough that I had to walk away. I thought more about the psychological part of this movie because of this paper. If we didn't have to write this paper I would have never payed that much attention to Lennie and his personality disorder. I also would have never learned as much as I did about him if I didn't go back into our psychology book. It told provided me with a lot of information and gave me more knowledge about personality disorders.

I never knew there were three clusters that also had different areas within them (pg. 632-634). I would recommend this movie as a piece of media to add into the class whether it's powerpoints or something to watch to find the disorder Lennie had. It would be a good learning experience for students to look up the disorder just as I did.

Work Cited

1. Of Mice and Men. Image Entertainment, 1992. DVD.
2. Weiten, Wayne. "Psychological Disorders." Psychology: Themes and Variations. 9th ed. Las Vegas
3. Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013. 632-634. Print.

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