positioned to the back right of Lennie and the visual focus is on George as Lennie
talks. The viewer is now looking at ‘the visual experience of the character Lennie’,
the calm smiling face of George, who remains still and attentive. This use of angle
and distance, a standard film device, is to visually construct viewer empathy with
George’s ‘experience’ and the objectification of the character of Lennie. It also
serves to further differentiate the characters through visual means.
Clothes
Both in the book and in the CD-ROM clothes are used to construct the relationship
between the characters in different ways. In the book George and Lennie are
represented as both dressed in denim trousers and denim coats with brass buttons. It
is the characters’ physical features, their height and size, which distinguish them. In
the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’, George and Lennie are re-presented through their clothes
(in addition to their height and build) to be different. In the CD-ROM the character
Lennie is dressed in a flat cap and loose fitting dungarees cut from a pale blue light-
weight denim. George is dressed in a dark brimmed hat, a well fitting dark brown
jacket and jeans, and a check shirt. Clothes are used as social marker of visual
difference. Lennie is dressed in clothes that are traditionally worn by children (and in
the era of the book, the working class). George is dressed in clothes generally worn
by adults. That is their clothes are associated with the power of the social position of
child and adult. In this way, clothes are visual signs used to suggest Lennie’s
dependence on George.
The shared social position of the characters Lennie and George, a significant feature
in the novel is transformed in the visual mode of video on the CD-ROM. The use of
clothes to visually position George and Lennie’s relationship as an adult-child
relationship presents a filter through which George’s anger and his attempts to control
the character Lennie in Chapter One (and throughout the novel) can be read as
acceptable within a contemporary context. The imbalance between the two characters
is visually highlighted. The nature of the friendship between George and Lennie is
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