Earlier in the story, Candy’s dog is killed, but not killed by candy. He was shot by another worker on the ranch. Candy felt hurt because of this, he felt sad and empty because he had just watched someone kill of something that meant so much to him. George remembered this and did not want anyone but himself to harm Lennie.
To George what he had done was right, he had not harmed Lennie he had helped him, he had saved him.
George feels like he is helpless to Lennie, there is no way the George can get Lennie out of trouble, as much as he would love to he can’t. By killing Lennie this is the last way he help him, this is the only way to show how much love he feels for Lennie, to show how much he cares for him. This is a way to help Lennie and to get him out of trouble, George sees this as the only option he has to save his dear friend.
When George had done this, Lennie was in his element, he had the person he loved the most with him, reassuring him, telling him how is going to be alright, their future is going to be perfect, just him candy and George. Lennie died peacefully, he died in peace and harmony.
Obviously George was very hurt by the loss of his best friend, but in his eyes this was the only way to save Lennie. George had put Lennie out of his misery. Lennie did no longer have to suffer.
George felt it was his duty to kill Lennie so no one else could. All the time George has known Lennie, George has protected him from any harm. If somebody else killed Lennie it would not only hurt George but It would go back on everything that George has done for Lennie. What would be the point of George helping and caring Lennie for all those years, protecting Lennie for all those years, if he is going to jus let someone hurt Lennie. There friendship would not only be ruined, but there wouldn’t be a real friendship between the to
In a way I think George feels a little bit helpless in this situation, he has no control over whether his best friend is going to die or not. George felt he was still protecting Lennie.
When George killed Lennie he had to take into account that not only lennies dream was killed, but his own and candy’s. All this time Lennie and George had spent together they had been planning how they could follow there dreams and become happy, and live together in happiness. This dream had been crushed, it was nobodies fault and no one had any control over it at all. Candy was bought into the dream later in the story, but the dream could never be pursued due to lennies mishap. Obviously by now George could not pursue the dream without his closest companion with him. We have to sympathise with George it mustn’t have only been hard to kill his best friend, but to kill his future as well, must have been very hard.
No matter how mush George sheltered Lennie from harm, the outside world and in a way reality, he couldn’t stop fate. There was no escape for George and Lennie. It seemed impossible for them to get away, time was against them, and so were a lot of people, so George really had no choice but to kill his best friend.
Although there are all these reasons why the ending to of mice and men are inevitable, some people may go against all of this. You have to consider other endings to the story as well. I could not come up with many myself as I saw the ending as inevitable.
Some of the reasons may have been, George could have died as well, of he was so close to Lennie would he of not said, Lennie has done nothing wrong in my eyes, so if he seems guilty to you I must be as well. This way there dream could have been killed in one way but they would be together. Although saying this, George feels no need to take his life, in a way Lennie is a burden toward George; he cannot be left alone because the consequences can sometimes be bad, as you can see from the story. George probably feels with Lennie gone it would not only be better for himself but for Lennie as well, Lennie can no longer suffer and George no longer has to see Lennie suffer in such a way it hurts both people. George is hurt by his friend’s loss but he feels it is the best thing to do to protect Lennie from any other harm. So this ending I do not think has quite the same affect as the one Steinbeck has come up with.
Another ending could have been that they could have tried to run away, nut it would have only been Lennie and George. George could have taken Lennie and moved onto the next place, they could have made some money and their dream still could have gone ahead. This ending seems a little to fake. Some might say that George feels like he would be running away all the time and what would be the point in continuing with a dream that had to be carried out for so long. He felt like he, would always be running. Another reason why this ending could not work out is because time is against them as I have said before, there is a whole ranch after them and they really don’t have any where to run to. They don’t have enough time to escape. Where ever they go they would be followed by people and hunted down to be killed. It would be pointless for them to run. There would not be enough time. George has to explain to Lennie, Lennie can also be a bit stubborn, so he wouldn’t want to go, he feels he has made a silly mistake and it can be corrected. He wouldn’t be able to realise why he would be running away from this life which seems fairly good towards Lennie.
So this ending also wouldn’t work there are too many reasons to why it wouldn’t work again going against it. This alternate ending would be too predictable and there would be no twist, this is what Steinbeck really wanted in the story to end
If an ending like this had of happened it would not link to the ending as there is no twist to this.
There are twists that are unexpected in the story and to make the story perfect in the end would not fit in. all the way through the story you in a way expect something terrible to happen, maybe not George killing Lennie, but something that may not make sense to you, or that would make you wonder, why did he do that? The way that Lennie died was sudden, quick and much unexpected it was the perfect ending for of mice and men. This is the last way George can help Lennie. Him killing Lennie is firmly out of love, he knows he must do this otherwise Lennie will suffer forever; this is not what George wants.
Lennies death comes as a bit of a shock, but the whole concept wasn’t. We fully expect the story to have something tragic happen, it’s the way it should end. The story is almost too perfect until this point. Steinbeck ending is inevitable.
