Imagine you are just about to kill Lennie at the end of the novel. What would be going through you mind?

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Emma Baxter L5J

Imagine you are just about to kill Lennie at the end of the novel.  What would be going through you mind?

Lookin’ at Lennie sitting on a bank of straw, thinking, do I do it, can I shoot my best friend. If I do I will feel like I’ve failed, no, no I ain’t gonna pull that god dam trigger. Yet in my heart I know I ain’t of failed him or Aunt Clara ‘nd I should shoot him.  If I don’t, they would get him…. an’ even if they ain’t gonna get him right away; they’d get him soon enough all right.  They’d put in away in a cage, like a dangerous an’ harmful animal.  Then he’d die a sad and lonely death, he don’t deserve that, he don’t deserve it not one little bit he don’t.  If he’s gonna die at all, he should die a death where….Lennie is being Lennie.  If they only got him an’ taken him, in my mind they’d have me all right, but I’d be with Lennie.  I would still, after all the trouble he gotton us into ‘ave been there for him….but without him…the point of livin’…there’d be none; out Lennie, I’m useless.  I had a feelin’ all our good intensions ‘ere out if he did anythin’ else, after he’d ripped that dress, that son-of a-bitch.  I kept on tellin’ him to let go, I did.  The trouble with Lennie is that when he likes somethin’ he clings on 'nd he ain't gonna let go.  It’s not his fault, the just does what he is told.  Anythin’ that he ain’t told, he don’t do. Why didn’t he listen to me? I know that he couldn’t ‘ave helped it.  Our shared dream, our hopes; we did everythin’ together, but now all or dreams, hopes and friendship are gone.  I told Lennie the dream of havin’ our own ranch, all he ever could remember was those dammed rabbits.  He couldn’t remember anythin’ else except the rabbits.  I remember him saying, ‘An’ live off the fatta the lan’.  And have rabbits ’ then he’d ‘ave me sayin’ it over an’ over again.  I remember all the different colours he said in the exact order ‘Red, blue and green.  Millions of em’ Our ranch was goin’ to be good it was, we ‘ere gonna meet lots of people ‘I we like em they can stay, an if we don’t…’ then we’d be happy an' our life would be good.  We ‘ad it all planned out, just how we liked it.  Doin’ somethin’ like that meant you had to ‘ave trust in him and he had to trust me.

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He ain’ knew where we are going; he trusted me….an’ I, kinna’ trusted him. I ain’t had a friend …….a kinna partner like Lennie before but I wanna do what’s best for the crazy bastard.  When we were by the water I remember when he said, ‘Look, George, look what I done.’  I’d look an every time I’d end up tellin’ him to stop whatever he was doin’.  He never learnt anything; he trusted me to tell him what was wrong.  I kinna not only trusted him but respected him.  He once said to me, ‘I…ain’t gonna say nothing.  Jus’ ...

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