Lennie is described as ‘an affectionate giant with the mind of a child’, he is still intelligent, but forgetful. He knows that George cares for him deeply and would never leave him. He uses this affinity to his advantage. When George starts to get mad at him, he answers, ‘George, you want I should go away and leave you alone? If you don’ want me I can go off in the hills an’ find a cave. I can go away anytime.’ Lennie knows that George will not let him go, so he gets around George by making him feel guilty.
Even though Lennie is quite intelligent, he is very childlike. As a child is often described as ‘innocent’. Because Lennie is ‘innocent’, he accidentally does bad things. One incident that the reader is told about is about what happened in Weed. Lennie saw a girl wearing a red dress and went to touch it. Of course, the girl got scared, so she screamed. Then Lennie panicked and got tight hold of the dress. When he finally let go, the girl was so terrified, that she said she had been raped. This was the reason why George and Lennie had to get away from Weed. Through the book, the reader is being told about the mice that Lennie killed, by petting them too hard. Then once he happened to kill his puppy, accidentally. After that death, came another. Curley’s wife died, killed by Lennie. Yet, he remains ‘innocent’. He has taken a life, but is cannot really be blamed for the death.
I think Lennie treats George like a father, an older brother and a friend, all in one, because George always seems to be there for him. In a way, Lennie worships George and you can see that from the way Lennie listens and hangs on to every word George says. Even though he forgets what has been said to him most of the time, I think, whatever George says to him is in his mind somewhere.
George and Lennie have a dream. This is a dream of owning their own farm. For George it means not having to answer to anyone and being his own boss. For Lennie, it means being able to tend to rabbits. I think the dream is like the foundation of their relationship. The thing that, if they were split up, they would both be able to look back on and it would keep them going. Although you’re probably thinking it’s a nice thing to have, a dream but deep down they both know that their dream is just a dream. It is a fantasy, which won’t come true. I don’t think Lennie realises as much as George that the dream won’t come true. Lennie is absolutely obsessed about looking after rabbits and is always asking about them. ‘Let’s have different colour rabbits, George,’. When George talks about this dream his face lights up and he really enjoys seeing Lennie happy and even though George is stuck with Lennie, he still likes having him there.
I think the killing of Candy’s dog is similar to the killing of Lennie. The way that Candy saw it is that he is not hurting anyone and that there is no reason to have to end his dog’s life in misery. Even though Candy loves his dog more than anything else in the world he chose to let someone shoot his dog in the back of the head. George shot Lennie himself as he knew that he had to kill him. I think that the reason partly for this is because George knows that Lennie will be shot any way, but if he did it, it would be out of love and protection, and not revenge and hatred. George also knows that he cannot go on with Lennie, always running away from some kind of trouble that Lennie has caused. I think the dream that they shared made it harder for George to shoot Lennie.
