The Role Of Friendship In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

George made the right decision by killing Lennie as Lennie could not escape or run anywhere after Curley found out that Lennie killed his wife. Curley wanted to kill Lennie after he saw that his wife died. “ I’m gonna get him. I’m going for my shotgun. I’ll kill the big son-of-a-bitch myself. I’ll shoot ‘i'm in the guts.” Killing Lennie painlessly was better than Lenny dying slowly and painfully. George killed Lennie because he would not be able to watch Lennie get killed by Curley.

George raises the gun and steadies it... BOOM! He brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie's head. George made a hard decision at the end of the book, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Lennie and George are really close friends. George is smart and very aggressive, and Lennie is big and strong, but has a mind of a child. First, Lennie and George arrive at the ranch in Soledad, California during the Great Depression. Lennie keeps getting into trouble, which risks their job, so George has to clean up the mess. Finally, George has to make a decision on how to give Lennie a life he deserves, or letting him suffer. Lennie and George are like brothers and they would do whatever it takes to make eachother happy. Throughout the story,

After Lennie killed Curley’s wife George said to Candy “Maybe they’ll look ‘im up an’ be nice to ‘im” (Steinbeck 94). There are other things to do to Lennie. George should have just let the cops find him and lock him up or something. Curley got the guys that work on the ranch to go find Lennie. George said “The poor bastards nuts. Dont shoot ‘im. He didn't know what he was doin’”(Steinbeck 98). George didn't want them to kill Lennie. George tried explaining to Curley that he didn't know what he was doing and that he didn't mean to do that to Curley's wife. It's clear that George killing Lennie was not right to do even though George thought it was right to keep his promise to Lennie's aunt. It's not right to kill

Secondly, George had to kill Lennie, for he wanted to help Lennie to make his life better. Since Lennie had a mental disorder, he had to avoid talking to people or he would be judged and thought of as crazy because that is how people back in The Great Depression. On page 101 George says, “You… an’ me. Ever’body gonna be nice to you. Ain’t gonna be more trouble.” This means that George didn’t want Lennie to be made fun of or thought of as crazy. Therefore, George killed Lennie so he won't have to struggle through life

George kills Lennie because he poses a threat to society since he does not know his own strengths. In Weed, Lennie harassed a girl, but George was there to stop him before he could cause any serious harm. However, at the ranch, George was not there to stop Lennie when he grabs onto Curley’s wife’s hair and does not let

Some may say that since George killed Lennie when Lennie didn’t want to die and was still healthy, that would make it murder. Although this may be true, Lennie was going to die and/or be tortured either way, whether George killed him or if

I think tha the theme of “friendship is necessary for human survival” is very true for Lennie and George. George is there to make sure that Lennie doesn’t get into any trouble. With-out George, Lennie would be consitantly forgetting things. Without Lennie, George would have no one. Even if Lennie annoys him, Georg needs Lennie. With eachother they can make one an-others lives better. “Ok, ok. I’ll tell ya again. I ain’t got nothing better to do. Might jus’ as well spen’ all my time tellin’ you things and then you forget ‘em, and I tell you again.” (pg. 6) This shows that Lennie constantly needs to be remind of things and even if it bothers George he will still help because it’s somene he

“‘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.

Although Lennie acted different than George, George had no right to kill Lennie. George did not do the the right thing when he took his best friend’s life away because George promised Aunt Clara he would always take care of him. When the two men were first about to leave to start their travel for work, George makes a promise that he would take care of Lennie no matter what happened. “George said, ‘He’s my… cousin. I told his old lady I’d take care of him. He got kicked in the head by a horse when he was a kid”’ (22). George should have stuck to what he said and done whatever he could to take care of Lennie instead of killing him to get rid of the problems he caused. George reminds Lennie that Aunt Clara would not have been happy with the choices that Lennie always was talking about making. Instead of doing anything to help Lennie not make these decisions, he would just tell him not to do them which was not effective enough. “‘Jesus Christ, somebody’d shoot you for a coyote if you was by yourself. No, you stay with me. Your Aunt Clara wouldn’t like you running off by yourself, even if she is dead”’ (13). George was always reminding Lennie about how Aunt Clara would tell him to stop doing what he was doing, but would never do anything about Lennie’s actions. Instead of telling him what he would have been in trouble for, George should have punished Lennie for his

Good friendships make life easier. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, is about two men, George and Lennie, who go on various journeys in order to get a job. Although George would consider Lennie to be his closest friend, he ultimately ends up shooting and killing Lennie. George did this, not out of hatred, but rather out of protection. A good friend will always want what is best for one another. Steinbeck uses his protagonists’ friendship in order to show that true friendship can help make any of life’s hardships less difficult.

One reason George had to kill Lennie is because his punishment could have been worse. For example, on page 96 curley said he was going to take a shot gun and shoot him in the guts. “I’m gonna get him. I’m going for my shotgun. I’ll kill the big ______________ myself. I’ll shoot ‘im in the guts. Come on guys.” (Steinbeck 96). This states that Curley and other fellow ranchers were going to do horrible things to Lennie. Since George didn’t want Lennie to suffer, George took

George’s greatest concern was to provide Lennie the safety he needed. There was never a point in the story where Lennie was abandoned by George for money, hookers, or living a better life. Although George dreamed and complained about of how life would be without Lennie, his conscience always told him otherwise. George cared for Lennie like if they were brothers. As a result of Lennie’s actions, George came to the tragic decision of putting Lennie down. In order to truly protect Lennie, George made the correct decision of executing him.

One day, when George leaves Lennie behind in the barn, he kills Curley’s wife and George saw this as the last straw with Lennie. George decides to find where Lennie had run away to, and comfort him. Little did Lennie know, something was about to go terribly wrong, “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” (Steinbeck 106).

George takes Lennie’s life to save him from the horrors that he would have experienced, either at the hands of Curley and the farmhands, or in a prison like San Quentin, where gangs and criminals would immediately take advantage of the naive and dutiful Lennie; George kills Lennie, to put it simply, out of love. When Lennie asks why George is unusually silent, he monotonously replies that “it don’t make no difference” whether he screams or yells, and this is when the reader realizes the calamity that is to come; Steinbeck continues to describe the absence of emotion that George must impose upon himself in order to have enough courage to kill his best friend when he depicts the fleeting moments of hope and friendship before Lennie’s death. When George initially raises the gun to shoot Lennie, “his hand [shakes] and he [drops it] again”, and we can almost feel the pain that George does as he tells Lennie that he “ain’t mad. [He] never been mad” as a final plea for understanding. Thus, George sends Lennie to a place where no one can hurt him, where he will finally be accepted and at peace; Lennie’s best friend frees him from the painful, hateful shackles of the world during the Great Depression into a haven of joy and

In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck George kills his best friend Lennie. George’s reasoning for this is that Lennie is killing too many people and has become a burden. Lennie does not realize that he is doing wrong by accidentally killing animals and people. George says that he is doing this for other’s benefit when really he is doing this for his own good. This was wrong of George and he is guilty because even though Lennie was accidentally