Theme Of Murder In Of Mice And Men

Is There Mercy in Murder?
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck is of two men who care for each other very deeply. They have their financial struggles and one partner with mental disabilities. They battle their hardships together, but when Lennie, the mentally disabled, makes a mistake and kills someone, it forces George to have to take away Lennie’s life. Critics believe George Milton committed cold-blooded murder when he killed his close companion, Lennie Small; I disagree and believe George’s heroic journey instead lead him to the mercy killing of Lennie. George Milton and Lennie Small are both introduced in the novel at the same time as being close companions. They are both poor, migrant workers who constantly struggle to keep their jobs
As George tells Lennie about their dream farm, he prepares himself to kill Lennie. George tells Lennie, “Take off your hat, Lennie. The air feels fine” (104). George knows he has to kill Lennie soon but he wants Lennie to be in a happy place when he dies. He does not want Lennie to be scared and to die slowly and cruelly as he would with the men of the ranch; with George, Lennie’s death would be fast and painless. George begins to hear the footsteps of the other men. To prevent the men from killing Lennie, George decides he has to kill Lennie himself. The scene is almost parallel to when Carlson shot Candy’s dog and Candy regretted that he did not kill his dog himself, but allowed a complete stranger to do it. As George talks to Lennie about the dream farm, “...[George] raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head...He pulled the trigger...Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he lay without quivering” (106). Unlike Buddha’s saying, “No one saves us but ourselves No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path”, George saves Lennie when he kills him. He saves Lennie from being killed by strangers, such as Curley, and being put into jail and abused. The men from the farm finally find George and notice Lennie lay lifeless on the ground. Curley sees Lennie dead, but does not understand why George is so upset. Curley says, “Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them two guys?” (107). Unlike Buddha’s saying, “No one saves us but ourselves No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path”, In the film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Chief Bromden suffocates his good friend and mentor, R.P. McMurphy, after he gets a lobotomy and becomes a human vegetable. The Chief admires McMurphy, but