Of Mice and Men Trigger Warnings

Hi everyone! As promised, here's the trigger warning list for Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.

[Important: Please note that trigger warnings are not necessarily to make it so that you can just avoid the content. There is a fairly popular mistaken belief that trigger warnings are censorship. That is not true. Trigger warnings exist so that, if you are sensitive to the content, you are made aware of it before it occurs and surprises you. This gives you a chance to prepare yourself mentally before reading it so that it does not affect you as negatively as it might if you didn’t know that it was going to happen. Also, please note that if you rely on triggers for the shock-value or plot twists (aka, “Well I can’t use trigger warnings because they’re spoilers!”), you aren’t a very good writer and you definitely aren’t taking into consideration the potential sensitivity of your audience.]

Triggers, listed in order of the number of occurrences: death, racism, sexual innuendos, sexual assault, and emetophobia (fear of vomiting).

I didn’t note the period-typical misogyny while reading, but its there, so watch out for that too.

The paragraph numbers and a general summary of each are listed on the following pages. For reference, the italicized numbers in the parenthesis are the page numbers in my book, and the total number of paragraphs in each chapter are listed below:

Chapter 1 - 144

Chapter 2 - 213

Chapter 3 - 275

Chapter 4 - 156

Chapter 5 - 113

Chapter 6 - 107

Death

This book contains are fair amount of death, mostly in relation to animals, so you’re going to want to prepare yourself for that.

Starting on paragraph 32 (7) of chapter 1, there is a mention over the next few pages of a dead mouse. Lennie likes stroking the mice, but he also accidentally kills them. There’s at least one brief mention of the mouse later in the novel that I didn’t write down because it wasn’t explicitly stated that the mouse was dead.

By far, the most relevant scenes of this warning (by number of occurrences) is the mentioning of killing dogs or dead dogs. The occurrences are as follows:

Starting on paragraph 185 of chapter 2 (35), Slim mentions killing puppies because his dog gave birth to too many. This is mentioned several more times--in paragraph 201 (36) and paragraph 3 of chapter 3 (38). Carlson suggests that Candy shoot his old dog and take care of one of the remaining puppies instead in paragraph 192 (35). This is mentioned several more times, starting in paragraph 55 of chapter 3 (44) and going on for several more pages until paragraph 104 (49). It is mentioned in passing once later in the chapter in paragraph 236 (60).

At the beginning of chapter 5, in paragraph 4 (82), it is revealed that Lennie accidentally killed the puppy that Slim gave him. This is mentioned several other times in the following pages until paragraph 25 (85). He was playing with the puppy and he accidentally hit it too hard.

In chapter 3, in paragraph 202 (56), killing pigs, chickens, and rabbits for food is mentioned.

In chapter 3, in paragraph 211 (57), Lennie talks about killing cats if they hurt his rabbits.

In chapter 5, in paragraph 56 (89), Lennie accidentally kills Curley’s wife by snapping her neck. This is talked about for most of the rest of the book. In the talk, Curley mentions shooting Lennie for killing his wife.

In chapter 6, in paragraph 93 (104), George kills Lennie by shooting him in the back of the head.

Racism

Other than the vague period-typical racism in the novel, the parts that stood out the most were the use of the n-word. The instances that I noticed were as follows:

• In paragraphs 15 and 16 (20) of chapter 2
• In paragraph 21 (21) of chapter 2
• In paragraph 119 (29) of chapter 2
• In paragraph 51 (43) of chapter 3
• In paragraph 38 (69) of chapter 4
• In paragraph 103 (77) of chapter 4
• In paragraph 117 (78) of chapter 4
• In paragraph 121 (79) of chapter 4
• In paragraph 100 (95) of chapter 5

Sexual content

I, personally, don’t like being surprised by sexual innuendos or content, so the instances that I noted are as follows:

In paragraph 102 (28) of chapter 2, Candy tells George that Curley wears a glove full of vaseline to keep his hand soft for his wife.

In paragraph 132 (50) of chapter 3, Whit insinuates that Curley’s wife looks at other men because she’s interested in them sexually. In reality, she’s just lonely.

In paragraphs 139-145 (51-52) of chapter 3, the guys mention going to a brothel the next day.

In paragraph 161 (53) of chapter 3, Curley believes that his wife is cheating on him with Slim.

In paragraph 186 (55) of chapter 3, George mentions preferring to go to a brothel rather than to mess around with someone’s wife and go to jail for it.

In paragraph 85 (74) of chapter 4, one of the other characters mentions George and the others being at a brothel. Curley’s wife mentions it later in paragraph 93 (75), because she knows that Curley is there too.

In paragraph 15 (99) of chapter 6, Lennie’s Aunt Clara tells Lennie how much fun George could have had spending his money at a brothel, instead of saving it up for Lennie.

Sexual Assault

There is a brief mention of rape in paragraph 27 (41) of chapter 2. There’s no actual assault, just a lady telling others that that’s what happened after Lennie held onto her dress because he wanted to feel it.

Emetophobia

There is a brief mention of getting sick from drinking too much water in paragraph 6 (5) of chapter 1.

Next up: A Separate Peace by John Knowles

A Note for Teachers or Librarians: If you want to distribute these lists to your students or have them available to patrons, I can format the text into a singular sheet of paper--either as a flyer or a tri-fold brochure. Let me know if you want that, my rates are variable and low, as I don't want to create a paywall to accessibility.

Love Always,
Sam

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