In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, George, one of the main characters, showed significant growth from beginning to end. At the start of the novel he had a different way of living and outlook on life than he did towards the end. At the start of the novel he was an idealist, and had been motivated, antisocial, short tempered, and much more. George started this novel with a dream of living an ideal life with Lennie. “We’re gonna live off the fatta the land,” he’d say. He wanted to go somewhere off the grid with Lennie so that they’d both be safe and not have to worry about other people or Lennie getting in trouble. He wants to escape the harshness of the world that the two live in so that they can both be safe and happy. “I’d be bringin’ in my own crops ‘stead of doing all the work and not getting what comes outta the ground,” he hopes to leave the life of the migrant worker and own his own ranch and be his own boss. As the novel goes on he realises that any of this is probably not possible. No matter how much he saves up he will never be able to get enough money to buy and sustain his dream farm and Lennie is going to keep getting in trouble. George understands that he can’t hide Lennie from the world forever and that the natural order of things is that the strong pick off the weak, and he will eventually have to let Lennie go. This motivates him to seize reality, meaning he had to kill Lennie, which itself was a sign of tremendous growth in himself. Killing Lennie had many effects on George; one of them being that he became one of the men he’d tell Lennie stories about. George believed that he and Lennie were not like the other migrant workers – travelling alone and spending all their earning on a whim. When George would te... ... middle of paper ... ...icked in and he tried to think of how he could help Lennie –and when he caught up with Lennie he didn’t reprimand him or yell at him. All in all, the most noticeable, but probably overlooked, change is the fact that he no longer has a dream. So much of his life had depended on his and Lennie’s dream. The dream was a constant topic of conversation between him and Lennie (and eventually Candy as well). The stories and the planning all gone to waste because he had given up on his dream. That is the most noticeable difference. The abandonment of this fantasy changed everything and was at the heart of most of the developments seen in his character. There were multiple changes in George’s character, some blindingly obvious and some that were fairly subtle. All these changes had the same root – George’s choice to abandon his dream with Lennie and shoot his friend.
George and Lennie were lifelong friends and had varying personalities even from the start. Lennie thought about how his Aunt Clara said he should have been more like George. At the time when the story took place, the two men were travelling together, and had been for some time, working and then moving on to search for the next job they could find. They were like many other men in search for work, except it was rare for men to travel together. George felt a need to take care of Lennie because he was somewhat slow. George was an average man of the time. He was a good size, nice, but firm, and he had aspirations to be more than just a nomadic laborer. Lennie, on the other hand, had always been a little different. He was big, goofy, clumsy, but sweet. They were also both good workers. George was concerned with working and getting his money before they got into trouble and had to leave camp. Lennie was the one who normally started the trouble. He was a hard worker and lived to appease George, but he got distracted easily which angered George. George told about how they would own a house and a farm together and work for themselves. Lennie loved to hear the story and think about the possibilities, even though nobody knew if any of it was a possibility. George and Lennie's differences in part led to George's inclination to kill Lennie. Despite their dissimilarity, the two men needed each other probably more than they realized.
As George becomes aware of the situation he begins to ponder what will happen if Lennie gets away. George understands that Lennie would not be capable of providing for himself out in the wild. As George contemplates allowing Lennie to be free of all the men, he “[is] a long time in answering” (94). George is one of the few men who understands Lennie’s mental limitations, he knows Lennie would not remember how to survive and “the poor bastard’d starve” (94). He
George really helps him through problems that keep happening during the book. Lennie is incapable to live because he does not know his strength and George has to play the role as a living assistant for Lennie. Lennie does not mean to harm but because of his condition he essentially harms people. In the book it explains the trouble in weed and George explains “Well he saw a girl in a red dress and a red dress and he just wanted to feel it and when he touched it the girl just starts yelling and all he can think to do is hold on” ( Steinbeck 41). The quote states or explains how Lennie can scare or harm people.
George kills Lennie because he did not want to witness Lennie being hurt or killed carelessly, run off by in his own and not being able to take care for himself, and Lennie’s mental disorder will never change how Lennie reacts to certain situations. Many believe taking the life of another without consent is unacceptable but in certain situations like George’s, he has to decide due to Lennie’s mental disorder that was leading him into unpleasant situations. George is an admirable character who choose to protect and do justice to his distressed friend,
The issue of loyalty is embodied in the character of George. He is an intelligent man who could make a successful living for himself on his own. He chooses to stay beside his friend Lennie. George can never get a steady job to fulfill his long-term goal of having his own farm. The first job that Lennie and George have together goes well for a while. Eventually Lennie ruins everything that is going good for them. Lennie sees a pretty dress that a girl is wearing. Without thinking about what he is doing, he goes up and grabs the dress to feel the nice fabric. This scares the girl and she tells the boss. Soon the whole town is after Lennie. This is the perfect time for George to start a new life, without Lennie. However, because of his loyalty to Lennie, he chooses to help Lennie escape from the town. Lennie needs George to survive. It is this that propels George to make the sacrifice that he does. After Lennie kills Curley’s wife, George knows that this is the end for Lennie. No matter what, someone will eventually kill Lennie. And if Lennie gets away this time, there will be another time, and eventually the inevitable will happen. He truly loves Lennie, so he shoots Lennie painlessly in the back of the head. Lennie dies with the happy thought of the dream of the farm they want to own some day.
In conclusion, George killing Lennie was a murder because of lack of consent and Lennie was not suffering physically. In this society, people are scared of the unknown, and that is how they lived. No one realized what they were doing was wrong. But Lennie was just like everyone else, only different because of a small, mental setback. The characters did not seem to realize that Lennie believed in a future ahead of him, and that he had hopes and dreams just like them. Life is incredibly short, and no one should deserve
In the end Lennie caused a big conflict by killing Curley's wife. This lead George to kill Lennie for his own good. If George wouldn’t of killed Lennie, Curley would have killed him in a more brutal way by making him suffer. George and Lennie could have ran away but Curley wasn’t going to give up until he found them. If they would have ran away they both would have been lynched. Killing Lennie was a big decision George had to make, but it was the best for Lennie. Even when Lennie died George managed to make him happy by telling him the story of their dream farm and their plans for it. George was a good friend so he did what a good friend would do in that
George is almost certain is will happen, as he wishes for 'a little house' with a 'few acres' of land to grow their own food. This is also important as it shows that in 1930s America, the main goal was to achieve stability, to be able to rely on yourself and not be worried about getting 'canned' everyday and to live, not only survive on the bare minimum. However, even George's simple dreams seem incredibly unrealistic and Crooks sums this up the best as he says 'nobody never gets to heaven and nobody never gets no land' which shows how many people attempted to acheive the same thing, to achieve stability, however no one ever did. At the end of the novel, George's dream comes to an abrupt stop as he has to kill Lennie. These final moments show how short life in 1930s America was, and how unfair situations were. Even though Candy still offered to give George his savings, George chose the solitude life of a ranch worker as Lennie was part of his dream, and how he couldn't even seem to reconsider living the American dream without him shows the reader how much Lennie meant to him.
George has sudden outbursts towards Lennie a lot, which is realistic, because it is hard living with a person who suffers from any form of mental illness. It’s a struggle, but George is willing to live with Lennie, and point him in the right direction, however, George does succumb to ...
John Steinbeck 's Of Mice and Men is a story about what it means to be human. Steinbeck 's story of George and Lennie 's ambition of owning their own ranch, and the obstacles that stand in the way of that ambition, reveal the nature of dreams, loneliness, and sacrifice. Lennie, the mentally handicapped big guy who makes George 's dream of owning his own ranch
Lennie is stuck in a childhood state, and is the main reason the farm exists. “Now Candy spoke his greatest fear, ‘You a’me can go there an’ live nice, can’t we, george?’...George said softly, ‘-I think I know from the very first, I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would.’” They realize that without Lennie, there is no farm. As Lennie dies, so does the dream of a farm.
George and Lennie make an awesome couple of companions, however George is all the more an overseer. It was a greater amount of George's fantasy to claim their own farm and settle. It was George's American dream to possess their life and take to take what they believed was legitimately theirs and that is the sort of attitude that a few individuals had amid the 1930s. A great many people did not comprehend why George dealt with Lennie in light of the fact that he resembled a miserable cause however George constantly wanted to deal with him. Most characters of the novel feel that Lennie is unequal to them, however this was not genuine. Lennie had the same trusts and dreams as most characters in the
At the beginning of the novel, George feels responsible for taking care of Lennie because he could have given him to another family. Since Lennie has the mentality of a child and the body of a grown man, George fails to be attentive towards him. However, they are wrong because George is justified in killing Lennie due to him murdering Curley’s wife; George is unable to defend Lennie from others trying to kill him. He is bold enough to take responsibility for Lennie when he gets used to “ Lennie just [coming] along with [him] out workin’” after his aunt died(40). During the Great Depression, people rarely consider each other family and chose to travel alone. Thus, George and Lennie’s relationship is unique. George cares enough to consider him family even though others view their relationship as an anomaly. In addition, their strong bond makes Lennie fear that George will leave him, but he knows that “George wun’t go away and leave [him]”,(73). This part of the novel is significant because although Lennie is scared and thinks like a child, he is still an adult. No one during this time period would take responsibility for him. George has no choice but to kill Lennie due the sufferings that the mentally disabled faced in the 1930s. Identically, Lennie was as hopeless as Candy’s dog who only relied in the assistance of others most of the time. He was described as an old dog who “ain’t no good
During the story Of Mice and Men, George once said, “he aint no cookoo. He’s dumb as hell, but he aint crazy” (Steinbeck39). George was sticking up for Lennie. Then later on in the story, George and Lennie’s boss once told George “I have never seen one guy take so much trouble for one another” (Steinbeck22). Proving George takes care of what he is responsible for. During the story, Lennie often tends to get himself into trouble, but George never got mad. He accepted the fact that it happened and gave up whatever he had to enable to keep Lennie safe. Not to mention, George also stood up for Lennie by saying “poor bastard didn’t know what he was doing” (Steinbeck98). At this point in the story, Lennie killed his bosses’ sons’ wife. Lennie then ran to the river like George him to do earlier in the story. The boss and his son went looking for Lennie. But before they could find him, George got to him, but since Lennie was George’s responsibility, George took it to himself to solve the problem by killing Lennie before the boss and his son could do it themselves. George and Lennie are responsible for one another, not to mention all the sacrifice, both George and Lennie make for one
George is pretty much in charge of Lennie and is the brains of the operation. He thinks very big of himself and thinks he's got the rest of his life planned out. He wants to own a farm someday with Lennie. He really likes to cuss and get drunk on Friday night. He always says to Lennie "If you weren't around I would have a job by now," but he really cares about him. At the end George puts Lennie out of his misery and shoots him. He said "it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life."