The last 10 minutes of the 1939 version of Of Mice and Men

Note: this is Part 2 of a three part series.  See also Part 1 and Part 3.

Introduction

Bob Weir’s revelation that John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men was a partial inspiration for “Jack Straw” allows us to look at the song in some interesting ways.  While I do not intend a comprehensive analysis, I have found the comparison of the song to Steinbeck’s novella enlightening. I propose here only to use that light to casually see what we might otherwise miss when we listen to the song.

If my words nonetheless find their way into some desperate sophomore’s English term paper, I’ll preemptively relieve the crushing guilt by claiming up front that little here is original or meaningful in a scholarly sense.  I’m just riffing.  More to the point, “Jack Straw” isn’t ultimately a retelling of Steinbeck’s story or even a celebration of his style.  We *can* use Of Mice and Men to get a handle on Hunter’s and Weir’s song, but it doesn’t really work well in reverse.

This week’s introductory post may be a better place to start if you’re not familiar with the song, or Weir’s claim about Steinbeck’s influence, as I’ll assume below the reader knows those basics while I explore.  Likewise, I’ll assume a basic familiarity with Of Mice and Men.

In my last post this week, I’ll step deeper into the mystery of what else might have inspired this song.  In that discussion I will claim some originality.  Oh, I’m probably not the first- but honestly  I don’t yet know of anyone who says that “Jack Straw” is, as I believe, inspired partly by an actual murder known well in the history books and meaningful in the context of its aftermath.

But for now…

My old buddy, you’re moving much too slow…

The most obvious connection between “Jack Straw” and Of Mice and Men is the friendship between the two men at the core of both narratives and the fact that, in both, one friend murders the other.  But comparing the relationships and the murders reveals real differences between the two works.

George and Lennie in Steinbeck’s work are both essentially good men, albeit imperfect and beat up by the world in various ways.  Their relationship, though unequal because of Lennie’s developmental disability, is a caring one.  They give “a hoot in hell” about one another.

Jack and Shannon however, while they are “old buddies” and presumably otherwise similar, are morally unequal and alienated from each other. Despite the fact that they are both escaping the law, Shannon is a cold, hard criminal compared to Jack; at least until the end of the song.

“I just jumped the watchman, right outside the fence;
took his rings, four bucks in change.  Ain’t that heaven sent?”

“Hurts my ears to listen, Shannon.  It burns my eyes to see.
Cut down a man in cold blood, Shannon; might as well been me!”

Now, one can certainly see some parallels in the relationships.  Shannon keeps the duo “moving much too slow.”  His actions, such as the murder of the watchman and his insistence that he and Jack go to Oklahoma to settle an old score, keep their freedom out of reach.  Jack makes that clear in his response to Shannon’s plan to hop the first train to Tulsa.

“Ain’t a place a man can hide, Shannon, will keep him from the sun.
Ain’t no bed can give us rest now, you keep us on the run.”

George seems to claim something similar of Lennie.  “God a’mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy…   You can’t keep a job and you lose me ever’ job I get.  Jus’ keep me shovin’ all over the country all the time.  An’ that ain’t the worst.  You get in trouble.  You do bad things and I got to get you out.”

But we can only ride these rails so far.

The passage above shows George’s frustration, but he cares deeply for Lennie and often lets him know it.  And the trouble Lennie gets them in, even the trouble that forces George to kill him, is not the result of malice but rather his disability.  Ultimately, George kills Lennie out of mercy, to save him from the mob that would torture him for accidentally killing Curley’s wife. George helps Lennie visualize their fantasy of having a little farm, shoots him painlessly from behind, and is heartbroken at the loss of both his friend and their dream.

(This scene of the murder from the 1992 version of the movie, which I can’t embed, is not bloody and is in fact beautifully acted and filmed.  It is nonetheless disturbing, and quite so if you don’t know the story!  Take care when you click.)

Shannon on the other hand reveals himself as a truly bad man immediately.  Jack’s horror at this sets up the conflict, and his realization that it keeps them from their freedom is what drives him to murder.  To save himself, Jack cuts his buddy down, digs him a shallow grave, and moves on.  But in doing so, he becomes a murderer in a way quite different from George. The song ends with the haunting lines “One man gone and another to go.  My old buddy, you’re moving much too slow.”

Really then it is not even about good and evil.  There is only the transcendent realization that we are all equal in death, whatever we might dream.

It’s true that both the song and the novella use the loss of a dream as a key element.  If we read the song more deeply, as I will in my last post, there is indeed a critically important parallel.  But in terms of the narrative it’s clear that, though Weir and Hunter use some of the same colors as Steinbeck, the picture they paint of the two men at the center of their story is quite different.

Now the die is shaken, now the die must fall…

There *are* some parallels between both works that are worth noting briefly.  I’m sure I’m missing much as well, so if anyone wants to comment below on what they see, feel free!

The natural imagery in “Jack Straw” seems to operate similarly as in Of Mice and Men, evoking both beauty and harsh reality at once.  Eagles fill the sky above Jack and Shannon as they leave Texas, and a heron plucks a snake from the pond at the beginning of the scene that ends in Lennie’s death.  Both use the sun throughout, and particularly during the murder scenes with Shannon’s at sunrise and Lennie’s at sunset.

Most importantly, both works suggest that chance is the main governor of the human experience.  Note that the common definition of a ‘jack straw’ is a stick used in the game known by the same name, or as ‘Pick Up Sticks’, the straws being tossed randomly into a pile to begin play.   It’s no stretch then to say that, in one sense, all of the people in these two stories are “Jack Straw.”

“The best laid schemes” in both works are nothing compared to the cosmic roll of the dice.

“We used to play for silver, now we play for life.
One’s for sport and one’s for blood at the point of a knife.
Now the die is shaken, now the die must fall.
There ain’t no winner in this game, he don’t go home with all, not with all.”

It hardly seems necessary to go further on this point, as there’s nothing I could say about it that hasn’t been said in countless and better ways before.  I would point out though that this element is, I think, the key to understanding the time in which this song was written and what I believe is at the deep root of it all.

Coda

What improbable chain of events brought a young man to the front of the crowd during a free concert at Altamont and left him stabbed to death by a member of the Hell’s Angels by the end of the evening?  How did this one act of random violence leave the counterculture, represented reluctantly but to no small degree by the Grateful Dead and their compatriots, standing cold and alone in December of 1969, facing what critics called the end of their dream?  Was it easy for them to relate to the mouse in Robert Burns’ poem?

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men

gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

for promis’d joy!