Of Mice And Men Death Essay

Death comes in all shapes and sizes. Some are considered accidents and others are murders. It doesn’t matter what you call it, death is still death, a small black cloak over the world that will someday pull an entire generation into its icy grasp. There is a fine line between mercy killing and murder that few people see the difference in. Euthanasia, or mercy killing is usually interpreted as a painless killing of a person suffering from an incurable and painful illness. The practice is illegal in most countries. While murder is defined as killing someone unlawfully. Steinbeck's, Of Mice and Men demonstrates the loneliness, isolation, and violent actions of the world back in the 1930’s. This Novella follows two men, George and Lennie through the struggles of migrant life and faraway hope. In the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Lennie’s death is a mercy killing rather than a murder because he can’t control his strength, he is mentally ill, and people are already hunting him.

“Trouble with mice is you always kill ‘em” (Steinbeck 13). Lennie Small, a large childish man’s death is a mercy killing because he can’t control his strength and as a result he hurts a lot of living things. Over the course of the book Lennie has either killed or hurt somebody or something on a

Both the police and ranch workers were after him as well as the men from Weed. “The guys in Weed start a party out to lynch Lennie” George reveals to Slim (Steinbeck 42). When Candy showed Curley’s wife’s body to the workers Curley elicits “When you see ‘um, don’t give ‘im no chance. Shoot for his guts. That’ll double ‘im over” (Steinbeck 97). Curley also sends Whit to “go in Soledad an’ get a cop” to keep Lennie from getting away. Lennie won’t survive in jail because he’s “Jus’ like a big baby” and will probably end up dead. Compared to the outcome of getting caught George did Lennie a favor of giving him a peaceful