The title is a quotation from Thomas Gray’s poem “To a Mouse,” whose theme is that both men and animals (even those as diminutive as a field mouse) may make plans for the future, so that future comfort and happiness can be attained. The problem, however, is that unforeseen circumstances are not included in our plans, because some things are beyond our understanding of the world. In Gray’s poem, the mouse has built a nest to keep him warm and safe, but does not know that the narrator would be plowing that field in the Autumn: “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley, / An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, /For promis’d joy!”
In Steinbeck’s book (and play), the brothers Georg and Lennie are making plans to one day own their own farm, but Lennie’s low mentality and desire to stroke small animals had not figured into their plans, so when Lennie accidentally breaks a woman’s neck, George has to kill his brother to keep him from being killed by a mob. The plans “of Men,” then, can be thwarted just as the mouse’s plans for the winter are thwarted.
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