Animals are extremely important to Lennie revealing his child-like mentality. Lennie wants to “pet” something all the time. However, George is not convinced to allow Lennie a pet because he constantly ends up killing them, although it is not intended.
Candy’s dog is extremely important to him as the dog is Candy’s only friend. Candy has had this dog since he was young, he “had him from a pup” and “had him too long.” This is why Candy does not wish to “put the dog out of his misery.”
Many incidents in the novel hint at the ending making the novel more interesting for the reader. Lennie, for example, “pets” a mouse at the start of the novel, which he kills: “…they bit my fingers and I pinched their heads a little and then they was dead – because they was so little”. This implies that Lennie does not know his own strength. Later, Lennie goes further and kills a puppy: “Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice. I didn’t bounce you hard” Once again, Lennie’s mentality lets him down and kills hid dog by bouncing it. He does not realise that bouncing the dog may lead to the dog’s death. The killing of the larger animal indicates that Lennie has the ability of killing an even bigger animal, and perhaps even a human. This is because Lennie's simple mind troubles him because he becomes scared and panics very easily; this causes him to hurt and even kill people. His accidental killing of the mice, the puppy and crushing Curley’s hand all hint to what happens to Curley's wife because Lennie does not know what is right or wrong. He does not realise the difference in killing animals or people, although he intends to do kill neither. He didn't know that killing Curley’s wife was different than an animal and only ran because George told him to if he got in trouble. He has no idea that when he does these things it affects George and other people around him greatly.
As the death of mice and the dog foreshadows the death of Curley’s wife, the shooting of Candy’s dog can also be compared to the shooting of Lennie.
When Candy’s dog is shot by a “stranger” he is extremely upset. The dog is his only friend and most characters suffer from loneliness. Afterwards, Candy tells George about his feelings “I shouldn’t ought to have let no stranger shoot my dog” we acknowledge that Candy wanted to kill the dog himself, and nobody else.
George finds himself in similar circumstances when Lennie accidentally kills Curley’s wife. Once again Lennie, like Candy and the dog, is unable to stop the ranch workers from killing Lennie. He does not wish to make the same mistake as Candy and let a “stranger” kill Lennie. Lennie is hit in the back of the head while thinking of their dream. He is shot in the same place as Candy’s dog was shot, and killed with the same gun – Carlson’s Lugar. The similarity of their death shows that Lennie has been treated in the same way as an animal. It can also be said that Lennie killed Curley’s wife in a similar way that he killed his pets. This exposes a blurring of the human and animal world, humans are reduced to animals in the way that they are treated, whether it be Lennie or Curley’s wife.
Steinbeck uses animals very cleverly in this novel. He uses them to describe characters and also uses them as omens. We see how the death of the mice and dog foreshadow the death of Curley’s wife, and also how the death of Candy’s dog reflects Lennie getting shot. This shows how humans are treated like animals, and how it is sometimes a necessity.
Grade - C
