In the book of Mice and Men, George was justified to shoot Lennie because Lennie is destructive and unstable. To begin, Lennie does not know how to control his strength and that causes him to be destructive. An example is in chapter five, where Curley's wife and Lennie are in the barn. Curley’s wife was too friendly to Lennie, that’s leads to Lennie touching Curley's wife’s hair, then Lennie grabbing her hair and accidentally breaking her neck. Curley's wife screams '" Let go, you let go!"' (Steinbeck 90). In this quote, it shows that Lennie does not know how to control his strength because if he did, he would've let go. Consequently, this cause a big conflict and a main reason why George was justified of shooting Lennie. Another reason is
His power makes people feel threatened by his strength. In the novel, Lennie is much stronger and bigger than everyone else. He hurts animals and people by his strength although he doesn’t mean to. Like when he killed Curley’s Wife by accident, Lennie said, “Oh! Please don’t do that. George’ll be mad” (Steinbeck 91). He was in a panic didn’t want her to yell or else he would be in trouble with George. So he put his hand over her mouth and nose. That caused her to struggle even more so he got angry and shook her. He killed her by his power when he shook her and broke her neck. This quoteshowed how Lennie uses coercive power to hurt people, because he kills her by using his
This is why Lennie isn’t violent. Whenever Lennie does something bad, he suddenly thinks back to George, not being violent, or the fact that he just hurt someone. This shows that he can’t help the things he does, he always needs someone looking after him. One example of this is on page 91, when Curley’s wife starts screaming: “Please don’t do that. George’ll be mad.”
In the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, George and Lennie learn to travel and experience the world together as they take on a new job working on a ranch in central California "bucking barley" for the ranch owner and his son. Lennie, not being able to control his actions, hurts too many people and things and men were chasing after the two, so George decides to take action and shoot Lennie. Although some may disagree, George did the right thing by shooting Lennie because he could not have avoided hurting someone else in the future, he could not eventually learn that the things he did were wrong due to his disability, and he could not learn to eventually control his own strength.
Throughout the novel, Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck presents Lennie to be responsible and also irresponsible for his actions. Sometimes throughout the novel, Steinbeck presents Lennie to be irresponsible for his actions because life at the time was very difficult. People were losing their jobs, many farmers lost their farms, and were forced into the life of itinerant workers. The lifestyle Lennie had could be responsible for his actions, because he didn’t really have support. However on the other hand you could also argue that all the other men lived the same lifestyle as him and they took responsibility for their actions, you could also argue that Lennie had more support than any other ranch worker, because he had George taking care of
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.
In the book Of Mice and Men George and Lennie are good friends who travel from ranch to ranch looking for work. Lennie has a mental illness and is always getting into trouble. At the end of the book, George decides to shoot Lennie before the people back on the ranch get to him. Many people would argue whether George made the right decision when he decided to do this. George made the right decision to shoot Lennie because he would’ve been a danger to others, would’ve been locked up and tortured, and wouldn’t have wanted to go to a mental institution in the 1930s.
Did George do the right thing by killing Lennie? In John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men, that is the question that the reader is left asking. George and Lennie, lifelong friends, were torn apart by George putting Carlson’s luger to Lennie’s head and pulling the trigger. That was the end of the lifelong friendship, the end of what made them different than the other guys.
The book "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck, foreshadows the imminent failure of Lennie and George, the two main characters. Steinbeck uses 4 key events to foreshadow the failure by writing about early conversations events in Weed, Lennie first laying eyes on Curly’ss wife, Lennie receiving a puppy, and finally when Curly’s wife was lurking around is a pretty colorful dress. The first solid evidence of George and Lennie's imminent failure occurs as the story begins. The main characters, George and Lennie, were walking on a dirt road to their new destination.
He is also like a child, waiting for George to answer for him and is mentally handicapped, with no ability to understand some words. Basically, Lennie is focused around George, just like a dog to it’s master. He always thinks about what George will do to him if he does something wrong. When Curley was looking for his wife, he saw Lennie still grinning about the memory of the farm so he began to attack the big guy. Lennie had no idea what was going on, so he just put his hands up to defend himself.
Lennie can’t control his own strength and he is not very smart and don’t know what he does. In the beginning, Lennie liked to pet mice and not realizing it killing them. It leads up to grabbing a girl's skirt, in the town of weed making them run out and hide in a ditch. Toward the chapter one ending George was concerned with Lennie making another mistake, making them move again. George told him if any trouble was to happen he was to leave and hide in the brush and wait for him to arrive. Lennie received a newborn pup but one day when he was playing unrealizing it crushing the puppy. The worst thing any person could have done is murder. He snatched her hair, grabbing her and then final the snapping of the Curley's wife's
Lennie is unquestioning in his loyalty to George. We see this in George’s anecdote about the Sacramento River. “‘Jump in.’ An’ he jumps”(P66) Lennie has a childlike obedience. Steinbeck shows us this in the fight between Lennie and Curley. Earlier on, George tells Lennie to not fight with Curley, Lennie remembers this and due to his childlike obedience, his “hands remained at his sides; he was too frightened to defend himself.”(P91). Once George tells Lennie to “Get him”(P91), Lennie immediately crushes Curley’s hand completely. Most mature people would know whether they should break the rules or not, because they wouldn’t get as badly hurt, but with Lennie, it is a different story. It is this childlike obedience that Steinbeck uses to show us how George needs to act as a parent towards Lennie.
In the fictional story Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck, George was justified in his decision to end Lennie’s life. Lennie was like a forced upon-tag along that George had to put up with for many years. In the book, Slim and George always had talked about how Lennie was such a good man and that he never meant no harm, although, Lennie did bring harm to many. For example, he killed the pup and Curley’s wife. Lennie is a masculine man and he works hard too, that doesn’t change that he wasn’t wise enough to live the way George and he have to. Candy admitted after his dog had been shot, “‘When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me. But they won’t do nothing like that.” (Steinbeck, 1937, p.60) This quote put the idea in George’s
Not all of Lennie’s traits are detestable as Lennie also possesses the trait of devotion, a very admirable trait. Lennie proves time and again in Of Mice and Men how devoted he is to his brother-like friend, George. As stated previously, Lennie is a very childish and naïve individual making him slow to anger. That is why it is so remarkable the intensity of the anger and almost malice he has towards Crooks when he threatens the one person Lennie is devoted to most, George. “Lennie’s eyes centered and grew quiet and mad. He stood up and walked dangerously towards crooks. ‘Who hurt George?’ He demanded.” (Steinbeck 72). In just a short period of time Lennie went from a calm talk to Crooks to a near brawl over a “what if” scenario that had not even happened to George. Lennie would have fought to protect the person he puts on a pedestal. While Lennie is not the brightest character he does prove his devotion to George time and again.
When they first meet Curly he tries to start something with Lennie and George says, “But this Curley better not make no mistakes about Lennie. Lennie ain't handy, but this Curley punk is gonna get hurt if he messes around with Lennie." (Steinbeck 27) Lennie does not know his own strength but it is visible to everyone else, George does not fight Lennie’s battles for him, he tells Lennie to get them and Lennie does, but he is not aware of how much he is actually hurting them. George lets Lennie know it is okay to fight back sometimes but he stops him when things go too far.
Lennie loves animals especially soft fur animals and when he rubs to rough he tends to harm the animal and that is what happened when George let Lennie get a puppy. If Lennie would have let the puppy get a little bit older maybe the dog would have been okay for Lennie to rub. When Lennie does not pay attention he can also hurt people. Curley's wife came to Lennie trying to force him to say stuff that he didn't want to say he got scared and grabbed her she started to scream and he didn't know what to do so Lennie shuck her hard and she died. Lennie should have just calmed down so he wouldn't have killed her. That is how Lennie didn't know his strengths which shows this story is