Another sad point of the story is how Steinback describes Lennie as lower person, for instance, in chapter three Steinback describes Lennie as an animal by saying, “He stood crying, his fist lost in Lennie’s paw,” so Steinback’s intentions for the reader is to describe Lennie as an animal by the term ‘paw.’ Further, Lennie’s mentally bad behavior also has an affect on George as he has to keep Lennie out of trouble and it frustrates him as Lennie acts really childish like a four years old child. For instance, in chapter one George describes to Lennie, “God a’mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an’ work, an’ no trouble,” so this indicates that if Lennie were not with him, George would have a proper job and have no trouble from Lennie, so basically it shows how much frustration that Lennie gives to George. But it also shows a strong relationship between them both and shows that even though George irritated by Lennie’s presences, he still stays with him as they have a powerful bond of friendship.
Furthermore, George, Lennie’s and Candy’s entire dream- their American dream- died out because of the death of Lennie at the end of the story which was to live, ‘off the fatta the lan.’ The death of Lennie affects their dream as they wanted to live together in a big house, own land and raise rabbits of their own for Lennie to care for.
However, the ending of the story is not entirely sad as it shows the true friendship between Lennie and George as George tells Lennie to look out into the open and think about their ‘American Dream’ right before shooting him in the back of the head; for a quick death, so he doesn’t feel any pain. This shows that George cares for Lennie so that he didn’t want anyone else killing him and it suggests that Steinback- the author of the book- wanted to show that George killed Lennie while making him die away with a happy thought.
However, the death of Candy’s dog was a symbolic device as it foreshadowed the death of Lennie. You can see this as on chapter three Candy says to George, “I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog.” Therefore, it shows Steinback’s intentions is to show that how George shoots Lennie, rather letting Curley or anyone else killing Lennie. But you have to consider whether George killing Lennie was murder or a mercy killing which means whether he killed him for gain or for mercy. I think George killing Lennie was a mercy killing but other people may think that it was murder.
Sadly, the story was set during the ‘Great Depression’ so life time for them was hard as it was hard to earn money and many problems occur during them times. So many people wandered alone, searching for a job to earn some money to live but George and Lennie was different because they had each other along the way, going to ranches to look for jobs and shelter. So they were different but everything changed when Lennie died because Lennie was all that George had and now he’s gone,, their dream is gone and there is nothing else for George to do but to just work and try to live.
In conclusion, to me I feel that the story has both sad and happy moments, however it shows the true bond of friendship between Lennie and George which George helped Lennie through out the journey the good and the bad times; for example George covered up for Lennie when he crushed Curley’s hand so that he would not get into to trouble, this is a good moment as it shows the strong relationship between the two. Although Lennie was killed by George in the end, George done it for the right reasons as he didn’t want to see his best friend suffer in pain, I thought that was a good moment as that was the best thing that he could do.
