Of Mice and Men Trivia
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100 free Of Mice and Men trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Of Mice and Men trivia quiz covers John Steinbeck's 1937 novella from its opening by the river to its final shot. The easy questions are ones anyone who read it in school could answer: the two migrant workers at its centre, what Lennie dreams of tending, the town they fled, the one-handed swamper, and the poem that gave the book its title. The harder end is for Steinbeck readers and English teachers: the original working title, how much Candy offers toward the farm, why Crooks lives apart from the others, what the setter pup Toby did to the manuscript, the real man Steinbeck said Lennie was based on, the Broadway director of 1937, the composer who scored the 1939 film, the Steppenwolf pair who reunited for the 1992 movie, the opera and ballet versions, and where the book sits on the American Library Association's most-challenged lists. Slim, Carlson, Curley's vaseline glove and the meaning of Soledad get questions too. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the novella, its author and its adaptations before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our John Steinbeck, classic novels and The Grapes of Wrath quizzes next.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does Lennie say he likes with his beans, sending George into a rant?
Ketchup
Ketchup: George has none, and the complaint sets off his rant about how easy life would be alone, until Lennie offers to go and live in a cave.
Q 02Of Mice and Men is set during which period of American history?
The Great Depression
The Great Depression: the ranch hands earn fifty dollars a month, so the six hundred the farm would cost stays out of reach until an old swamper offers his savings.
Q 03What is Lennie's surname?
Small
Small: the name is a joke on a huge man, and one ranch hand chuckles 'He ain't very small' when the two are introduced.
Q 04What is George's surname?
Milton
Milton: George gives both men's names to the ranch boss and does all the talking, which makes the boss suspect he is taking his partner's pay.
Q 05What animals does Lennie dream of tending on the farm?
Rabbits
Rabbits: George promises he can feed them alfalfa from the farm's own patch, and warns that any trouble means he won't be allowed to tend them.
Q 06Which town did George and Lennie flee before the story begins?
Weed
Weed: Lennie grabbed a girl's dress there and wouldn't let go, so the pair hid in an irrigation ditch all day to escape a lynch mob.
Q 07Of Mice and Men opens 'a few miles south of' which California town?
Soledad
Soledad: the name is Spanish for solitude, which suits a story of lonely ranch hands in which George passes his evenings playing solitaire.
Q 08Which poem supplied the title Of Mice and Men?
To a Mouse
To a Mouse: the poet apologises to a mouse whose nest his plough has wrecked, then reflects that the best-laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.
Q 09Who wrote the poem that gave Of Mice and Men its title?
Robert Burns
Robert Burns: his brother Gilbert said he composed it in 1785 on the very day his plough turned up the creature's nest.
Q 10What was Steinbeck's original title for Of Mice and Men?
Something That Happened
Something That Happened: Steinbeck wanted to record events without blaming anyone, then took his final title from a poem.
Q 11What happened to an early draft of Of Mice and Men?
A setter pup chewed it up
A setter pup chewed it up: left alone one night, Toby made confetti of half the book, costing two months' work, yet Steinbeck allowed that the dog 'may have been acting critically'.
Q 12What is the name of the aunt who raised Lennie in Of Mice and Men?
Clara
Clara: when she died Lennie simply came along with George, who stopped playing jokes on him after Lennie obeyed an order to jump in a river and nearly drowned.
Q 13Which California city's Theatre Union staged its own version of Of Mice and Men in 1937?
San Francisco
San Francisco: Steinbeck designed the book as a 'play-novelette' in three acts of two chapters, and let the city's labour drama group stage it at its new Green Street Theatre.
Q 21How does Lennie injure Curley during their fight?
Crushes his fist
Crushes his fist: Lennie only fights back when George yells 'Get him', and afterwards the men make Curley agree to say his hand was caught in a machine.
Q 22How did Steinbeck describe Curley's wife when explaining her role?
A symbol, not a person
The other characters never call her anything but Curley's wife.
Q 23What did Curley's wife dream of becoming?
A movie star
A movie star: she tells Lennie a man promised to write to her from Hollywood, and when no letter came she blamed her mother and married Curley instead.
Q 14Where does George tell Lennie to hide if he gets into trouble?
In the brush by the river
In the brush by the river: George makes him repeat it at their camp the first night, and it is where he finds Lennie waiting at the book's end.
Q 15Which Of Mice and Men character owns an old, blind dog that the other men want put down?
Candy
Candy: after letting another man shoot it, he tells George he should have done the job himself, a regret that hangs over the book's ending.
Q 16Where did most of the old swamper's savings come from in Of Mice and Men?
Compensation for his lost hand
Compensation for his lost hand: the ranch paid him $250 after the accident, and with fifty banked and fifty due he offers $350 to join the farm plan.
Q 17In Of Mice and Men, who shoots the old swamper's ailing dog?
Carlson
Carlson: he complains that the dog stinks up the bunkhouse and promises a painless shot to the back of the head, the way George will later shoot Lennie.
Q 18In Of Mice and Men, what is the job of the 'prince of the ranch', the one man Curley respects?
Jerkline skinner
Jerkline skinner: he drives up to twenty mules with a single line, and Steinbeck says he could kill a fly on a mule's rump with a bull whip without touching it.
Q 19What does Curley keep on his left hand?
A glove filled with vaseline
A glove filled with vaseline: the old swamper says Curley is keeping the hand soft for his new wife, which George calls a dirty thing to tell around.
Q 20Which sport did Curley compete in before the events of Of Mice and Men?
Boxing
Boxing: Curley is a lightweight who reached the Golden Gloves finals, and the old swamper says he picks fights with big men because he resents not being one.
Q 24How does Curley's wife die?
Lennie breaks her neck
Lennie breaks her neck: she lets him stroke her hair, screams when he won't let go, and he shakes her in panic, fearing George won't let him tend the animals.
Q 25Why is Crooks isolated from the other ranch hands?
He is black
He is black: Crooks is barred from the bunkhouse and its card games, so he lives alone in the harness room with his books.
Q 26What does Crooks ask to do on the dream farm?
Hoe a garden patch
Hoe a garden patch: Crooks offers to work for nothing but his keep, then takes it back the same night, telling the others he was only fooling.
Q 27What does Lennie accidentally kill shortly before Curley's wife finds him in the barn?
His puppy
His puppy: he had been told it was too little to handle, and after killing it he tries to hide the body under the hay so George won't find out.
Q 28Who is the only character who fully understands why George shoots Lennie?
Slim
Slim tells him 'You hadda, George' and leads him away for a drink, while the other two are left wondering what is eating them.
Q 29Which bird swallows a water snake at the start of the final chapter of Of Mice and Men?
A heron
A heron: in the first chapter it merely flaps off down the river, but in the last it stands motionless in the shallows and plucks the snake out by the head.
Q 30What did Steinbeck say the real Lennie did to a boss who fired his friend?
Stabbed him with a pitchfork
Stabbed him with a pitchfork: Steinbeck told The New York Times he saw it happen and couldn't stop it, and that the man was in a California asylum.