Although we never learn exactly what changes Hamlet asked The Players to make in their script, it is almost certain that the changes included the dumb show portion that presents the Fellow pouring poison into the King’s ear as well as the lines about fidelity and widowhood. One aspect of the irony is that Hamlet requested the changes so he could watch Claudius’s reaction: to “catch the conscience of a king.” He later tells his step-father. Dramatic irony is simply giving the audience more information than another character has. When Gertrude says this, she is speaking to the audience, not another character. She is foreshadowing any negative consequences of another character's actions.
Lennie is totally defenseless and rather petulant. He cannot avoid the dangers presented by Curley, Curley’s wife, or the world at large. His innocence raises him to a standard of pure goodness that is more poetic and literary than realistic. His enthusiasm for the vision of their future farm proves contagious as he convinces George, Candy, Crooks, and the reader that such a paradise might be possible. But he is a character whom Steinbeck sets up for disaster, a character whose innocence only seems to ensure his inevitable destruction.
