On the other hard George has many strengths being the only main character who hasn’t got a disability. George is a smart character, because he travels with Lennie he seems even smarter, he uses his cleverness to get himself and Lennie out of trouble. George is the hero in the novel, he is the one Lennie looks to for guidance, a parental figure and during the novel we the readers look to George for him to do the right thing. When George kills Lennie even though it is a harsh thing to do it took a lot of courage from George to be able to do the right thing to protect his friend. In the 1920’s George was seen as the typical man; white, male, young and able therefore on the ranch he isn’t a victim of discrimination as he is the typical man. George also has a dream, the American Dream “have a little house and a couple of acres an a cow and some pigs”, that dream keeps him going as he knows what it’s like having something of your own so is working to make that dream come true. Unlike other ranch men George isn’t lonely as he has Lennie so stops him from going mad and becoming bitter. George’s strengths represent a typical person’s strength that many have but not all, for example Crooks isn’t white so instead of his race being a strength it is a weakness.
For weaknesses Lennie is the opposite of George, he isn’t very smart as he has the mentality of a child which is a strength as well as a weakness. Lennie is a child like character who can’t reason, Lennie never wants to ‘get into trouble’ so ends up doing bad things unintentionally. Lennie also forgets important things like vital information and things he is meant to learn from. Whenever he makes a mistake he never learns from it so ends up doing the same thing over and over again which eventually leads to the wife’s death. He is very strong so harms things without meaning to: the mice, the puppy and the wife. Lennie not being in control of his strength also leads to his own death. As he is very child-like he is manipulated very easily especially by the wife when they were alone in the barn. Lastly Lennie’s love of “petting” leads to deaths of animals which he never thinks is his fault. He blames the mice, the puppy and the wife for their own deaths rather than himself which shows that he has no conscience. Lennie has no sense of moral responsibility which shows something isn’t right with him also could show signs of him being a sociopath. The main deaths in the novel are caused by Lennie but also caused by his child like mentality which doesn’t enable him to realise what he is doing. It shows that if it wasn’t for his disability or if he was helped with his disability the deaths could’ve been avoided and never occurred.
Where Lennie’s weakness is his child-like mentality George’s weakness is Lennie and his fear of loneliness. During the novel Lennie loses George jobs and holds George back, “I could get along so easy and so nice if I didn’t have you on my tail”. Lennie stops George from doing things he enjoys as he has to look after Lennie and get Lennie out of trouble. George doesn’t get any where in the novel because of Lennie, he never gets his dream this is because the novel has a circular structure where nothing is achieved. Also George is afraid of being alone; he wants someone to look out for him which is why he stays with Lennie. As he doesn’t want to be alone George doesn’t realise that Lennie is a danger risk to others and leaves him alone twice in the novel. George seems to be blind to the fact that Lennie is dangerous to others but as well as he doesn’t want to be lonely he wants a life as well. However it’s shown that George does know that Lennie is dangerous, “I should of knew” he always knew Lennie was going to do something bad but wanted Lennie’s company until that bad thing happened.
In conclusion Steinbeck uses the two main characters to represent his ideas of strengths and weaknesses to get the message across clearly. The characters who go around together are almost complete opposites who surprisingly get on well with each other. Steinbeck uses them to show that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses whether it be physical, moral values or character traits everyone is different. Also Lennie’s strength of not being prejudice shows that everyone is equal.
