Similarities Between Candy's Dog In Of Mice And Men

On pages 63 to 65, Lennie struggles internally over his own unrealized strength. After Lennie crushed Curley’s hand, Lennie sat cowering in the corner. He’s scared that he did something wrong but he never meant to hurt Curley. He only fought back because George told him to. George and Slim assured George that it wasn’t his fault and that he didn’t do a bad thing. On pages 44 to 48, Candy undergoes a personal struggle. When Carlson tells him that his dog is old and suffering and should be put down, Candy does not want to give up his dog. After Slim agreed that Candy’s dog should be put down on page 45, “Candy looked helplessly at him, for Slim’s opinions were law.” After being defeated by Carlson’s reasonable argument, Candy finally forces himself to give up his dog, knowing that he won’t have to suffer any more.

It “was silent outside. Carlson’s footsteps died away. The silence came into the room. The silence lasted” (Steinbeck 48). The use of the repetition of silence and an abundance of short choppy sentences to slow down the pace of the story. This emphasizes the awkwardness of the silence and the loneliness that Candy feels. Candy raised his dog from a pup and had herded sheep with him. His dog was essentially the last companion he truly had. When Carlson puts the dog down, he essentially puts down Candy’s whole demeanor in this moment, as Candy now has no one. In the same way Steinbeck uses narrative pacing in the instance with Candy’s dog, he also uses it when George has to put down Lennie. When Lennie is on the run from Curley, he clumsily returns to the spot where George had told him to head to in case he got in trouble. When George found him at the creek, he talked and talked with Lennie, until, finally, he, “raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger” (Steinbeck 106). Steinbeck slows down the pace

Carlson’s Luger Pistol was the weapon George used to kill Lennie. It was also used to kill Candy’s old smelly dog. If Carlson was not a character, then the ending might have been different. There are a million different endings that could have aspired in the book Of Mice and Men. But John Steinbeck left us with one, and it ended with Lennie on the ground and a gunshot in his head. “Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them two guys?” (107). Carlson said this after George and Slim went to go get a drink. He doesn’t realize how heartbroken George is, to him it's no big deal, but to George it’s a huge deal because he just killed his best

Lennie and Candy’s dog are parallel. Candy’s dog is old, stinky, it cant take care of itself and he’s useless. Lennie cant take care of himself of others, and when he gets scared he holds on to whatever hes got. Candy’s dog had to be put down, just like Lennie. They were also killed the same way. “If you want me to, I’ll put the old devil out of his misery right now and get it over with. Ain’t nothing left for him. Can’t eat, can’t see, can’t even walk without hurtin’” (48). In this scene Carlson took Candy’s dog out and shot him. Though Candy did not want his dog to be dead, he still went through with it. This is just like when George went to kill Lennie, he didn’t want too but it had to be

Carlson, the ranches ranch-hand is a blunt and a simple character. His hard life on the ranch has made him cruel and callous, one of his first lines is, “Well looka here Slim. I been thnkin’. That dog of Candy’s is so God damn old he can’t hardly walk. Stinks like hell, too … I can smell him for two, three days. Whyn't you get Candy to shoot his old dog and give him one of the pups to raise up? ” (Steinbeck 36) Immediately the reader is greeted with Carlson's malicious personality, he can’t understand the struggle that Candy faces when faced with the reality that his dog must be killed. Carlson is self-serving and unsympathetic, for he repeatedly tells Candy that he should just kill the dog already. Moreover, he even offers to kill the dog in place of Candy, finally convincing Candy and kills the dog. George on a different matter decides to kill Lennie, rather than allow him to be brutally murdered by the others. George must confront the reality of killing his only friend for the better good for the both of them. George realizes that Lennie can’t survive in the harsh world that they live in and with a shaking hand, “He pulled the trigger.” (Steinbeck 106) George is kind and caring, for when killing Lennie he tells Lennie to “Look down there acrost the river, like you can almost see the place.” (Steinbeck 106) letting Lennie die happily and ignorant to the gun barrel behind his

In the foreshadowing Carlson shoots Candy’s dog. Carlson's reason for doing this is that it’s too old and doesn't have fun anymore. When Carlson does it Candy say “ I ought to have shot that dog myself George. I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog.” (61).George probably took this and put it in perspective with Lennie. If he would’ve let Curley shoot him then things would've been worse because he would've suffered more. Another reason the reader thinks he did the right thing is because of what slim says.

Any good person does not want to watch a friend to be hurt, and George is no exception. George is most worried for Lennie when Curley says ‘“i’m gonna shoot the guts outta that big dumb bastard myself, even if i only got one hand.”’ (steinbeck 48). this is when Curley, Slim and Carlson are getting together to find Lennie and hurt him and kill him. George thought

In the novella Of Mice and Men both Lennie and Candy’s dog dies. The dog was killed by Carlson with a bullet in the back of his head with Carlson’s Luger pistol. Carlson convinced Candy to kill him because the dog was useless to itself and he wouldn’t hurt it while killing it as he said on page 72, “The way I’d shoot him, he wouldn’t feel nothing.” Lennie was killed by George by the Salinas River. George killed Lennie because Curly was going to kill Lennie for killing his wife and I guess thought he should do it. Both Candy’s dog and Lennie was killed by a shot

For example, Candy says,“ I oughtta of shot that dog myself, George” (Doc D) when Carlson had already killed the dog. Candy feels he should have shot the dog himself because the dog is his responsibility, and the dog would have felt a loving presence at the time of his death. Candy wishes he had shot his own dog just as George feels responsible in shooting Lennie himself when Curley is looking for him. Carlson said, “ Right back of the head.” (Doc D) that is where he shoots the dog. Lennie is shot in exactly the same spot (“right in the back of the head”) place where the dog is shoot. The shooting of Candy’s dog clearly foreshadows George’s shooting of Lennie. Both Lennie and the dog get killed with the same gun, Carlson’s Luger pistol. Before Carlson killed Candy’s dog he said to Candy,“ This ol’ dog jus’ suffers hisself all the time.” (Doc D). If George does not kill Lennie, Curley will painfull kill him “in the guts”. Lennie has always been protected by George throughout his whole life, there is nothing that George will do in order to keep Lennie safe. George does not want Lennie to die painfull, he wanted Lennie to die full of hopes and peacefully go to

The killing of Candy's dog was related to when George killed Lennie in several ways. First of all, both the dog and Lennie were weak, and killed as soon as they became useless to the society. Also, the dog was Candy's friend, and Lennie was George's friend. In both cases, Slim viewed the deaths as mercy killings. The last similarity was that both Candy and George felt lonely after the death of their companions. The difference was that Carlson killed the dog for selfish reasons, while George killed Lennie out of mercy. This was how the killing of the dog relates to the killing of Lennie.

“‘Ain’t gonna be no more trouble. Nobody gonna hurt nobody nor steal from ‘em.’ ‘Le’s do it now. Let’s get that place now’” (106). These are the last words that filled the air between George and Lennie, their last exchange preceding a pivotal moment in both of their lives. They conversation calms and soothes Lennie, who hopes to finally get the farm that he and George dreamed about for so many years. Yet unbeknownst to him, Lennie would soon be set free from his earthly bonds by his long-time friend; a bullet, shot from the barrel of George’s gun, would enter Lennie’s head and kill him instantly. That bullet was not one of self-gain and moral disrepute, but one of freedom and liberation from worldly restraints. While this remains a hotly contested topic in classrooms reading Of Mice and Men, George’s intentions in killing Lennie were overwhelmingly good-natured.

In order to prevent this agony from befalling his dear friend, George took it upon himself to kill Lennie with a quick, painless death by shooting him in the back of the head. This form of killing someone results in a painless, instantaneous death, as by shooting in the back of the head as done by George and Carlson, the spinal cord is obliterated, instantly killing the victim, so that they feel nothing. George decided to kill Lennie at his very happiest, while he was thinking about their plans for their piece of land. In doing so, George prevented Lennie from causing any harm to anyone else, or himself. He also saved Lennie from any grief or pain from being executed or shot by someone without sympathy, as well as having Lennie know of his death. One moment, Lennie was bubbling over taking care of his rabbits, the next he was dead, blissfully unaware of dying. This is the noblest motive for killing, and one that was highly justified by George, as well as preferable for Lennie. "And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie 's head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred and then settled slowly forward to the sand, he lay without quivering."(p. 106)

Like Candy, Candy’s dog is faced with the ultimate punishment for his age and disability. Candy’s dog is old and said to smell bad and isn’t worth anything, the dog is shot because of its disabilities. This event foreshadows Lennie’s fate at the hand of George. Both of these characters’ euthanasia is rationalized to put them out of their misery and to prevent future suffering from happening due to their disabilities. Which is almost a mirror image of George and Lennie’s relationship where George has known Lennie for a considerable amount of time and George knows that he is completely responsible of Lennie’s well-being and when that well-being is in jeopardy George feels a moral obligation just like Candy did when he gave permission to Carlson to shoot his dog. The euthanizing of Candy’s dog is a “foreshadowing of what will happen with Lennie and George” (Thomas Scarseth) because both Candy and George’s relationship to those dependent to them end with them killing them in order to save them from suffering.

Lennie, for example, becomes fixated on the dream of having a farm with George. George tells him, "we're gonna get the jack together and we're gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an' a cow and some pigs and....a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens" (Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men 13,14). Lennie, because of his lower than normal mentality, takes George's story to be fact and just dreams of when it will happen. George's dream is essentially the same, but is based on if it will happen not when it will happen. George has to dream more realistically than Lennie. Lennie wants to "live off the fatta the lan'", but George has to determine whether they could survive or would starve. George, who looks after Lennie through the whole story, fulfills, at least in a way, Lennie's dream. At the end of the book, George describes the happy place he and Lennie will have. George seems to be describing their heaven. So, he sends Lennie to heaven -- with a gun shot to the back of the head -- to live off the fat of the land. George knows that shooting Lennie is the best thing he can do. He seems to follow Candy's words: "I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn't ought to have let no stranger shoot my dog." George knows that Curly will shoot Lennie when he finds him, so, by taking his life quickly and essentially painlessly, George fulfills Lennie's dream and shows one last instant of companionship toward his friend

The parallels between Lennie and George’s relationship and the relationship that their workmate, Candy had with his dog reaffirm the power dynamic between George and Lennie. In the novella, Candy must kill his dog because it is old and weak. Candy felt such extreme regret when it came time to kill his dog, that instead of doing