Empathy In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

A person you barely know, suddenly, bursts into uncontrollable tears, shocked, you turn to her and ask, “what’s wrong?” You may not know this person, or even like her, but empathy is a powerful thing. Empathy drives people to do things they don't necessarily have to do, these empathetic decisions define our character. The choice to say something and not just let another human cry, is driven by your character and how much empathy you have for others. John Steinbeck uses empathy all throughout his novel, Of Mice and Men mainly through characterization. Lennie and George, two buddies who travel together, are the main characters in Of Mice and Men. George is small, smart and fast, whereas, Lennie is large, slow and quite dumb. This combo may seem

While George is away, Lennie does something very bad, he kills Curley’s wife along with his dog; both on accident. This event causes Lennie to run away and Curley to go after him in anger to kill him. “‘All right, you guys," he said. "The nigger's got a shotgun. You take it, Carlson. When you see 'um, don't give 'im no chance. Shoot for his guts. That'll double 'im over’”(48). In the quote, it shows that Curley has no compassion or empathy. He does not show empathy towards neither his wife or Lennie and his actions. Instead, he says he is going to kill him in a painful, long way. This whole quote says so much about Curley’s character, it shows he has a poor character and bad morals; unlike George. Curley’s characterization reveals a lot about his character and how he is ruthless and doesn’t care for others not even his deceased wife. George later kills Lennie out of compassion because he is better off killed peacefully than by what is to come, Curley and his painful death. “Lennie begged, "Le's do it now. Le's get that place now." "Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta." And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie's head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he

George and Lennie do this from the start, George empathizes with the way Lennie feels by instructing him to not to drink murky water. Next, you see this with Carlson, the dog, and Candy when Carlson kills the old dog for Candy. Finally, it all circles back to Lennie and his relationship with George, when he kills Lennie out of compassion to protect him. At last, you can see a lot about a character through their actions, which are driven by empathy. We see this with the comparison of George, who is a caring person through his empathy, and the polar opposite Curley because he lacks empathy. In the end, a universal lesson we can learn is, we as humans seem to categorize empathy as just as positive thing, such as comforting someone we you see they are crying. But, as we see through Lennie and George's relationship, empathy could mean killing someone in order for them to escape a fate far worse. Empathy is doing something for someone that will therefore help them or better them in the future. This is an important lesson to learn in any time, place or culture because we as humans all have compassion and empathy for others and it is important to understand this empathy in order to understand ourselves and our actions towards