Lennie’s reliance upon George is lucid and one example of this is when Curley challenges Lennie to a fight but Lennie doesn’t show any signs of protecting himself or fighting Curley. He waits until George tells him that he can hit Curley before he shows any signs of defending himself against Curley’s attack.
George’s reliance upon Lennie is a lot deeper than that of Lennie’s towards him. George admits to Slim, during a conversation about himself and Lennie, that, ‘It’s a lot nicer to go around with a guy you know.’ This can show that George isn’t just using Lennie or just looking after him out of a sense of pity or duty to Lennie’s Aunt Clara who died before they left to work on ranches.
It appears to me that George and Lennie’s relationship seems like George has the upper hand but by the end of the novel I fell it is obvious that their relationship is of mutual dependence towards each other. Lennie’s trust and reliance upon George is at the surface and is therefore unmistakably recognisable but to enable us to understand the reliance and trust of which George has on Lennie we must look for it a lot deeper.
George shows his friendship with Lennie when people are against him. George sticks up for Lennie and tries to protect him from dangerous situations. For example, he told Lennie to stay away from Curley’s wife because he knew that if Lennie was left alone with her, something might happen. This was proven right near the end of the novel when Lennie ends up killing Curley’s wife and fleas to their meeting place which George told Lennie to go to if he ever got into trouble.
In the closing chapter of the novel George’s relationship with Lennie is really trialled when George decides to shoot Lennie rather than let him die to a lynch mob. As George tries to come to terms with what he has to do, Lennie is oblivious to what is going to happen to him. He asks George to tell him that they are different because they have someone to go around with so they’re not alone. He also asks George to tell him about their ranch that they were planning on getting. George did tell Lennie all about their ranch and then told him to close his eyes and imagine it. As he did George shot Lennie in the back of the head and George was left without his companion Lennie.
In conclusion I think George and Lennie had a mutual dependence although sometimes it seemed as though George had the upper hand but in the end that is not the case as George also had his need for Lennie’s friendship which made up for looking after Lennie as it means he didn’t have to travel alone in the general unfriendly and lonely environment of the migrant worker.
