The scene for Lennie’s death is again the pool by the Salinas River where we first met George and Lennie. Lennie has remembered to return to the brush because he has “done a bad thing” to wait for George. By setting the final episode of the book in the peaceful, natural environment where they were once happy and echoing parts of the first chapter (Hide in the brush an’ wait for George) Steinbeck begins to create pathos because we are reminded of what the men had, friendship and hope, and what they are about to lose.
After Lennie arrives and hides almost like a frightened, hunted animal, Steinbeck uses the two “visions” of Aunt Clara and the rabbit to show Lennie trying to make sense of what he feels and what has happened. But Lennie can’t fully understand and so whereas Lennie will die happy gazing towards the Gabilan Mountains thinking of his “heaven”, tending rabbits, George will be left to live with the knowledge that he killed his best friend and is now just the same as all the other migrant workers of the Depression: that is George’s tragedy.
After George arrives, having sent Curley and the rest of the ranch hands in the opposite direction, he prepares to shoot Lennie. However, the readers at first are unaware of what George intends to do, so we are very curious and suspense is created. From this point onwards Steinbeck uses a number of techniques in order to create a powerful, hard-hitting climax to the book.
Steinbeck uses dialogue, sound effects and carefully chosen words to reveal how stressed and anxious George feels when he first finds Lennie. His behaviour is so unusual that even Lennie notices. George only finds Lennie because he hears him shouting out his name this would immediately make George feel uncomfortable on top of the fact that George knows what he is going to do. Lennie notices that there is something wrong with George because in past experiences when Lennie has done something wrong George was the person who told him not to do it again and give him “hell” telling him that if Lennie wasn’t there all the things he could do. At this moment the readers will be thinking that George couldn’t give Lennie “hell” because George will not have Lennie for much longer but he does to try and make Lennie feel that there is nothing wrong. The sound effects of the ranch hands in the distance will also make George more anxious because he knows that he will have to hurry things up and George probably wants to delay things as much as possible.
The tension mounts when George begins to tell the dream for the last time because as George is saying what it’s going to be like when they live “off the fatta the lan’” he is carefully getting Carlson’s luger out of his pocket. George became so anxious with the gun in his hand he stopped telling the dream and the hesitations makes the tension rise. The tension also rose because George could hear the other ranch hands getting closer and closer but Lennie couldn’t because he was taken aback with the thought of tending to the rabbits and having their own little house.
The actual shooting of Lennie is very quick and dramatic. The fact that it was quick could be because George knew that he had to do it and if he didn’t do it then, then it could have been too late and Curley have seen and killed Lennie in a horrible way. It could also be because George thought that if he didn’t do it then he wouldn’t do it because he couldn’t. We know that it was quick because there are no hesitations and the sentence in which George pulls the trigger is very short and sharp. Straight after George pulling the trigger Lennie falls to the ground and just lays there without quivering instantly George knows he is dead.
After the shooting Steinbeck shows us the reactions of the ranch hands. We know straight away that there is a contrast in views of the shooting of Lennie Slim is very compassionate and shows his sympathy towards George as if he understands the way he is feeling. However, the coldness of Carlson is shown and readers would have come to the conclusion that Carlson is the sort of person that does not feel. His statement at the end is very hard-hitting on George especially after he just shot his best friend, the person he had travelled with for practically his whole life.
