Sympathy For Lennie In Of Mice And Men By John Steinbeck

In the novel Of Mice of Men, George Milton was forced to care for a man with the brain of a child. The man’s name was Lennie Small. George acted like a father rather than a friend to Lennie. George was never able to embrace Lennie’s good qualities. Instead, George focused on his bad ones and looked at Lennie as someone who was useless to him. Lennie was much more than that, but George could not see past it. George showed no compassion toward Lennie and hardly cared about how he felt. Thus, George was not a good friend to Lennie because he did some things behind his back, yelled at him constantly, and bossed him around.

There are more than 4.6 million people in the United States that suffer from intellectual disabilities. n the book Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck one of the main characters suffers from retardation.Lennie would have been better off in today's world than he was back in the 1930s.

Lennie is a main character in the novel Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck. Lennie is described a huge man, with a shapeless face; large, pale eyes; wide, sloping shoulders; who walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws. Lennie is described as “strong as a bull”. He is a massive man and is “hell of a good worker,” but he is mentally challenged and not very intellectual. Like George said, “I ain’t saying he’s bright. He ain’t.” Since Lennie is mentally challenged, he has the mind of a child so he acts and talks like a child, and this causes him to also be very impulsive. He likes soft things like rabbits, puppies, and when there is nothing else as a last resort Lennie uses mice. Lennie is a character

One usually has morals that they live by, but in certain cases, he or she may abandon their own beliefs in order to belong. This situation is shown in John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, between George Milton and Lennie Smalls. George always looks out for Lennie and takes care of him. Eventually, George begins to neglect paying attention to him. George had been spending so much time with the men on the farm, thus failing to watch Lennie. George’s absence ultimately led to Lennie’s demise. George went against his morals of taking care of Lennie, like he always used to, then neglected to watch him, leading to his death.

George takes care of Lennie many ways. George has taken care of Lennie for a long time. George took him under his wing even though he didn’t need to. George genuinely cares for Lennie. He feeds him, makes sure he is safe, also he gives him hope. George is constantly watching Lennie. George is a good friend to Lennie; however, George gets annoyed with Lennie very easily. He does this to make sure he doesn’t get into trouble or lost. He never leaves him by himself. This is shown when Lennie offers to leave, but George tells him “I want you to stay with me Lennie”(Steinbeck 104). George really cares for Lennie.

Everyone has had a caretaker or guardian to protect and care for them at some period in time. Developing into an adult is often times when a person becomes able to live independently. However, this is not the case for Lennie Small from the story, “Of Mice and Men” as a result of his disability. Being dependant on other people, Lennie needs a caretaker because of the lack of family to protect him. Someone without family relation, George, rises to the position as his caretaker in the harsh, unforgiving circumstances they have at the moment. Dreaming of a better future, George has to carry Lennie from job to job in order to eventually collect enough money to finally claim their land as their own. George has good, honest intentions for Lennie and only strives to give him the best conditions even if it meant he had to pull the trigger against him.

He can rarely think for himself and make his own decision. “I want you to stay with me, Lennie. Jesus Christ, somebody’d shoot you for a coyote if you were by yourself” (Steinbeck, p. 14). George does not trust lennie to live by himself. He thinks Lennie would not be able to hold his own and get a job. George is sympathetic towards lennie so he lets lennie stay with him. Lennie Would make a mistake like touching a girl for too long and hurting her which would cause everyone to run after him and he could not do that without George. This makes us sympathetic toward george because he makes bad decisions and gets himself into a lot of

In John Steinbeck’s work, Of Mice and Men, Lennie is compared to an animal multiple times which degrades from his sense of humanity and leads to a greater gap between George and himself causing Lennie to become almost nothing to the reader, and to the other characters in the story as well. While George has sharp figures and is precisely described, Lennie is shown as more animalistic, and not really given a lot of traits and characteristics. Also, the other people in the ranch/farm approach Lennie with fear and caution.

"I just done it ... took [the gun] an' ... killed him" says George on murdering Lennie (Steinbeck 107). John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men takes place at a ranch near Soledad, California during the Great Depression. George and Lennie are two migrant workers who travel together from place to place. Lennie has a mental disability and likes to pet soft objects. One day, Lennie starts to pet a woman’s hair. After the woman starts to panic, Lennie accidentally snaps her neck and kills her. George then hunts down Lennie and murders him. George murdered Lennie because Lennie didn’t wish to die.

In the book, Lennie is viewed as a very forgetful character. In the book Lennie says, “I forgot again George.” This trait of forgetfulness that Lennie has effects those around him, especially George. At the beginning of the book, George tells Lennie that he would be better off without him because Lennie is the reason why he can’t keep a job. This effects Lennie because despite his best efforts, he finds a way to hurt the ones he cares about. This situation makes readers feel sympathy towards Lennie because he can’t help forgetting everything and it must be very frustrating for not only him, but to George as

For those who have read the first chapter of this novella, we can recall the event of which Lennie suggested that he leave George to himself so that he could focus on his ambitions. This is event was exemplified when Lennie uttered "'If you don' want me I can go off in the hills an' find a cave. I can go away anytime.'"(Page 6) After Lennie made this suggestion, George expeditiously replied "'No- look! I was jus' foolin', Lennie. 'Cause I want you to stay with me.'"(Page 6) After scrutinizing these passages, we find that Lennie may have had a different intention in mind. For instance, when we first saw how George began to feel guilt for lashing out at Lennie, it can easily be interpreted that he intended for George to feel the way he did. This basically shows that Lennie is manipulative towards others, and is a bit self-centered. This, in turn, makes it far more difficult to feel sympathy towards what the reader would potentially interpret as a "self-centered" character like

In the beginning of the book Lennie killed a mouse. “‘I ain’t got nothin’, George. Honest.’ ‘Come on, give it here.’ Lennie held his closed hand away from George’s direction. ‘It’s on’y a mouse George.’ ‘A mouse? A live mouse?’ ‘Uh-uh. Jus’ a dead mouse, George. I didn’ kill it. Honest! I found it. I found it dead.’” (Steinbeck, pg. 6) This is a mistake that Lennie made then, and in the past before they were walking to the ranch. Moving forward throughout the story, it seems as though Lennie is learning from his mistake and is not killing any living things but towards the end of the book, Lennie kills his puppy that Slim gave him. “Only Lennie was in the barn, and Lennie sat in the hay beside a packing case under a manger in the end of the barn that had not been filled with hay. Lennie sat in the hay and looked at a little dead puppy that lay in front of him. Lennie looked at it for a long time, and then he put out his huge hand and stroked it, stroked it clear from one end to the other. And Lennie said softly to the puppy, ‘Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice. I didn’t bounce you hard.’ He bent the pup’s head up and looked in its face and he said to it, “Now maybe George ain’t gonna let me tend no rabbits, if he fin’s out you got killed,’” (Steinbeck, pg. 85) Lennie is more focused on the fact that he might not be allowed to tend the rabbits if he and George got their own land.

To the rabbits he wanted to tend. The rabbits helped him think about what he did a little

In the book Of Mice and Men, the main characters were George and Lennie. George is a small person. He looks like a fast, skinny person. Lennie is a Big fellow. He is muscular and he is really tall. In the book, Lennie is slow in the head and he likes to pet soft pretty things. Well one day he went up to a little girl and he started petting her dress but she didn’t know what he was doing. All of a sudden the girl started to scream. When the girl started to scream Lennie grabbed her dress and didn’t let go. Everyone thought he was trying to assault to little girl. Well on down the line they got a job working on a farm hauling feed. There was this girl who was married to the bosses son and she was kinda hoeing around. Well she was letting Lennie

The novel, Of Mice And Men, written by John Steinbeck is about two men who are bindlestiffs. That means that they do not have a place to call their own. Lennie and George are alway on the run because Lennie always does something bad and they have to run so that they don't have to go to jail. George takes care of Lennie because Lennie is mentally challenged. They work on farms and the farm provides a bed for them. They have a dream to buy a place of their own so they are saving up their money to buy one. They want one of their so that they always have somewhere to go. If it is raining and they don't want to go to work they could stay home and do nothing.