Even though George is friends with Lennie, he knows he will do something wrong “look, Lennie. I want you to look around here. You can remember this place can’t you?… if you jus’ happen to get in trouble like you always done before, I want you to come right here an’ hide in the brush.” He knows Lennie is going to do something wrong, so he is making sure that they get away by telling Lennie to meet there, so they can escape and don’t get separated. Because if they do go separately, George knows Lennie cannot cope on his own without George.
George knew all along that they would never achieve the American Dream, but he kept Lennie’s spirit alive by constantly telling him about it, “-I think I knowed from the very first. I think I knowed we’d never do her (the American Dream). He usta like to hear about it so much…” but when Lennie kills Curly’s wife, the dream is shattered for Candy, who was also led to believe by George that they could achieve the Dream.
Lennie looks up to George and always thinks he is doing the best for Lennie “An’ he was so damn nice to me for pullin’ him out. Clean forgot I told him to jump in.” He sees George as a kind of fatherly figure for him, because George is always doing goo things to help Lennie “An’ you get to tend the rabbits.”, “When he got a piece a pie you always got half or more’n half. An’ if there was any ketchup, why, he’d give it all to you.”
Lennie is like a child and doesn’t realise how bad one thing is to the other. “I done a bad thing. I done another bad thing…I’ll throw him away,’ he said. ‘it’s bad enough as it is.’” This quote is after Lennie has killed the puppy and Curly’s wife, he is referring to the puppy as ‘him’. This shows that Lennie doesn’t know that killing a person is worse than killing a puppy, which is the same for a young child. He thinks that if he gets rid of one of them, they won’t be as mad at him. Also, when Lennie kills Curly’s wife, it is the end of the American Dream for him, “George gonna say I done a bad thing. He ain’t gonna let me tend no rabbits.” For him ,the Dream is to tend the rabbits, not the whole ranch, just the rabbits.
All through the book, Lennie mentions George at a time when he thinks he can’t tend the rabbits, “George’ll be mad…he ain’t gonna let me tend no rabbits.” This shows that Lennie looks up to George as a fatherly figure.
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How Much Responsibility should be Put on Lennie for Killing Curly’s Wife?
I don’t think that much responsibility should be put on Lennie for killing Curly’s Wife. When they were in the barn together, Lennie told her how much he liked to “pet nice things.” She knew what Lennie had done to Curly, “Why…Curly …he got his han’ caught in a machine, ma’am…O.K., Machine. I’ll talk to you later. I like Machines.” When she said the word ‘Machine’ she meant Lennie as Lennie was the one who crushed Curly, not a machine. Then, knowing how much damage he could do to her (she also called Lennie a “dum-dum” which emphasises that she knew Lennie might not have known what he was doing) she offered for him to stroke her hair. She may have done this after she felt more comfortable with confiding in him about her not liking Curly, but she still knew the danger of Lennie.
Was George Right or Wrong to Kill Lennie?
I think George was right to kill Lennie. It wasn’t the first time Lennie got himself and George into trouble, in Weed, for example, “…He seen this girl in a red dress. Dumb bastard like he is, he wants to touch ever’thing he likes. Just wants to feel it. So he reaches out to feel this red dress an’ the girl lets out a squawk, and that gets Lennie all mixed up, and he holds on ‘cause that’s the only thing he can think to do. Well, this girl squawks and squawks. I was jus’ a little bit off, and iv heard all the yellin’, so I comes running, an’ by that time Lennie’s so scared all he can think to do is jus’ hold on…that girl rabbits in an’ tells the law she been raped. The guys in Weed start out a party out to lynch Lennie. So we sit in an irrigation ditch under water all the rest of that day…An’ that night we scrammed it outta there.” “Curley’s fist was swinging when Lennie reached for it. The next minute Curley was flopping like a fish on a line, and his closed fist was lost in Lennie’s big hand…Curley sat down on the floor, looking in wonder at his crushed hand.” These show that it was not the first time Lennie has got into trouble, although he may have done them purely because his child-like mind did not know what else to do, or because George told him to.
When Curley sent out that search party to kill Lennie, he made his anger seem as though it was coming from the death of his wife, although if he really did care about his wife, he would have shown some emotion instead of just quickly deciding to hunt Lennie down. I think Curley’s real reason for his anger was because Lennie embarrassed him and made him lose his forged respect over the workers when his hand was crushed. If Curley or the others (bar Slim and George) had found Lennie, they would have probably killed him slowly and painfully so as to get revenge on Lennie. I don’t think Slim would have done this, I think Slim would have made it quick as well, because he knew about Lennie’s past (Weed) and also he said “He ain’t mean,’ said Slim. ‘I can tell a mean guy a mile off.’”
*When George found Lennie, he was where he told him to be, and that is another test of Lennie’s friendship towards George. George also was a true friend, he knew that wherever he went with Lennie, they would find trouble and be run out (like in Weed). So George got Lennie to take his cap off, saying that “The air feels fine.” Obedient Lennie did just that, the real reason for Lennie to take his cap off was so George could get a clear shot at Lennie’s head. George began telling Lennie about the ranch and how they would “…live on the fatta the lan’.” And George made him imagine the ranch as Lennie was being told about it, then when George killed him, he got him in the exact place that candy’s dog was shot, so it would cause no pain. George knew this because Carlson said, “The way I’d shoot him, he wouldn’t feel nothing. I’d put the gun right there.’ He pointed with his toe. ‘Right back of the head. he wouldn’t even quiver.’” So George killed Lennie in the most painless way, and imagining their version of the American Dream, so then Lennie’s last thoughts would be happy ones.
