In ‘Of Mice and Men’ the hero is George. George is the hero for many reasons. One of them is that his companion, Lennie was so stupid George had to be constantly looking after him. Most people in them days would have just got rid of Lennie but George stayed with him to the very end. He kept Lennie happy by reciting “The Dream” to him. The dream was that one day they would get their own ranch and Lennie would be to tend the rabbits. It would take a pretty strong-hearted man to do all this, which is why I believe he is a hero. The main reason that rounds off everything is that at the end of the novel George shoots Lennie but it wasn’t out of spite, it was for Lennie’s own good. Lennie had killed The Boss’s son’s wife by accident
and the whole town was looking for Lennie so they could hang him and torture him etc. George didn’t want this to
Dale Titterton
happen so he recited ‘The Dream’ one last time and then shot Lennie in the head so he didn’t have to suffer.
When George shot Lennie it would have taken a whole lot of guts and courage to do this. I’m sure that most other people wouldn’t be able to do this in real life if it happened to them. This is what makes him a hero.
Gilbert, in ‘The Sexton’s Hero’ doesn’t have to deal with as much things throughout the novel as George does in ‘Of Mice and Men’ but he does have everybody mocking him and he loses the love of his life. He refused to get angry towards a person who taunted him though, which makes him a strong character. A character as strong as this much surely be a hero in his own right. The main thing which Gilbert does to give him the hero status is when he pushes back all his hatred and anger towards The Sexton and goes on to save the people you would think he would be happy about killing when they are drowning. After he had saved Letty and The Sexton, he drowned himself, so in other words he gave his life for them without holding a grudge, which is what a real hero would do.
If I was asked who I thought was more of a hero out of Gilbert from ‘The Sexton’s Hero’ and George from ‘Of Mice and Men’ I would say neither. I would say this because I believe that once a person has done something to make himself a hero he stays at the one, same level. For example, people wouldn’t say George was anymore of a hero if he did something else afterwards because he would already be one. Even if one of them had done something very small to make themselves a hero they would still be both classified as a hero at the same level.
In conclusion both George and Gilbert are as much of a hero as each other.
