Lennie is a large, extremely strong man, who has no living relatives. He travels about the country searching for work with his companion, George. Lennie's Aunt Clara had asked George to take care of Lennie if she ever died.
The most obvious feature of Lennie's character is that he seems to be retarded somehow. He is a man who has the mind of a child. Slim is one of the first characters to notice this, remarking that Lennie is
“Jes' like a kid” Slim said,
“Jus' like a big baby”, said Curley’s wife.
Lennie doesn't know his own strength, and this is one of the things, which lead to his eventual downfall. He realises that he is strong as a bull, but he can't judge how much force to use for certain actions. That is why he kills his pets, when he only intends to pet them and play with them. It is this inability to judge his strength, combined with his desire to pet things and Curley's wife's desire to be petted and admired which leads to Lennie's inevitable death. The ability to judge one's own strength is one of the first signs of maturity, and it is important that Lennie doesn't have this ability. Despite the major flaws in his character he is amiable and friendly, and doesn't do any of the bad things he does on purpose. He has a poor memory, and has to repeat things to himself many times to remember them. Even then, he still forgets them. He has a sort of blind faith in George, trusting in George to protect him and look after his welfare. For example, the incident George describes to Slim when he told Lennie to jump in a river and Lennie obeyed, without a thought to his own well being. This illustrates Lennie's trust in George.
However, it must be noted that Lennie can still be quite crafty, as when he cunningly persuades George to tell him the story about the rabbits by threatening to leave him and also try and smuggle the puppy in to his room without George knowing.
“Lennie came through the door. He wore his blue denim coat over his shoulders like a cape and he was hunched way over”
This is also proves that Lennie isn’t very intelligent because of his body language when he is trying to smuggle it in, where a normal more intelligent person would of tried to act normal he is obviously hiding something.
Another time that proves that George has complete control over Lennie is when Curley comes in looking for his wife but no one seems to know where she is. Lennie at this point had just been told the told about the ranch that they are going to have and so is smiling. Curly thinks he is laughing at him and so starts a fight. To begin with Lennie just takes the first few punches but when George knows that he’s not going to stop he shouts at Lennie,
“ He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, ‘get im Lennie ‘”.
At this point Lennie grabs Curley’s hand and crushes it with ease making a fool out of Curley.
This proves that he has complete control over him. Overall the relationship that they have works well mainly because if Lennie’s intelligence and will do whatever George says to do.
In the end because of Lennie not knowing his own strength he manages to kill Curley’s wife in the barn because she let him touch her hair and because he couldn’t let go she started to panic and scream. This then makes Lennie panic and so he grabs he mouth so stop he from screaming. He then accidentally breaks he neck and kills her. Lennie then remembers that if he got into any trouble to go and run to the spot that they decided on when they were on there way to the ranch. He does this and waits there for George. Curly and the rest of the men find her dead and because Lennie was the only one not present they knew it was him. George then realises that Lennie has gone to the spot and then runs there with a gun. He finds him and calms him down telling him everything is going to be all right. Lennie then asks him to tell him about their dream that they have and half way through he shoots him in the head and kills him.
The reason that George does this is because he knows that if the other men find him that he will get incredibly scared and probably beaten. Another secondary reason that he decides to shot him is because he would rather do it himself rather than a bunch of strangers.
Overall their relationship works really well because of the way that George can tell Lennie to do whatever he wants and Lennie doesn’t have the intelligence to question him about it. This also makes sure that there are no arguments between them although George gets annoyed a lot with him.
