Do you think Lenny from Mice & Men autistic?

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This is something I'd like to hear your views on. For he was very good at remembering everything that George told him which is an autistic sign. He almost hhad an obsession with that land with the rabbits, so what are your views?

Mildly at best. Autistic people are generally of average intelligence or better, which certainly doesn't apply to him.

I know he had mental retardation. I found it sad at the end his brother shot him for his own good because he would have gotten executed anyway for accidentally killing a woman which they thought was intentional.

I don't know about autism. I never thought of it.

Thanks for the massive spoiler. I have read it, just not everyone has. And I'm pretty sure George wasn't his brother...

Nope just low IQ. Don't recall anything from that book or movie that indicated autistic traits.

The only supporting evidence is the obsession with soft things. I don't think that's enough to qualify.

I think you are confusing "autism" with "asperger's syndrome" (AS is only a sub-type of the autism spectrum, and in the whole autism sprectrum the share od people diagnosed with mental retardation is much higher than in general population).

Of Mice And Men was published in 1937. At that time, developmental disabilities were formally classified as idiots, morons, imbeciles, and mongoloids. The only person that knew anything about "autistic psychopathy" was Leo Kanner. Lennie was a character with a generic mental disability. Any autistic traits are purely coincidental.

The vast majority here are older than a 9th grader so the vast majority here should already be very familiar with the book.

Hey! I didn't read it in 9th grade. I read it on my own the summer before my senior year.

I thought he was autistic. But he wasn't. He's just ret*d with some traits that might overlap to autism.

He wasn't autistic. He was Mentally Challenged. I also think it's sad that George shot him for his own good. That's the 1930s for you.

I liked Lenny. He was like a little boy. He was born to be a child. He was also never aware of his own physical strength.

On a random note, there is a minor character from The Ring that I suspect to be autistic. He is a teenage boy that stays near the doctor's office on the island. He likes to spin and repeated Rachel's line (possibly echolalia?)

I've actually considered the question myself recently and thought of only the sensory sensitivities (he loves to touch soft things). The character of Lenny was actually based on a real person. (You can look that up...) But as has been said, at the time there was not a lot of detail known on people's neurology and the character in the book was sort of a composite.

I think Lenny from Of Mice & Men is a fictional character. Therefore it is up to the author's discretion as to whether he is autistic, and I'm pretty sure John Steinbeck is dead at this point so the question is pointless.

He wasn't but when I watched the Green Mile, I was almost sure John was from the spectrum - in the book it was even more visible.