Lennie's Vulnerability

Loyalty Leads to Total Annihilation
The word loyal is defined as being “faithful to any lender, party, or cause, or to any person or thing conceived as deserving fidelity.” This concept often has a positive connotation supporting it. Nonetheless, the novel Of Mice and Men depicts this quality quite negatively through its two main characters. George Milton and Lennie Small, who have a tremendously strong father-son relationship, constantly travel from place to place in order to keep the latter safe, as Lennie’s disability always causes him to get into trouble. The reader sees George’s great faithfulness towards Lennie and his devotion to keeping the handicapped man safe, which constantly uproots his life and causes it to be in an incessant

disarray. John Steinbeck portrays loyalty in the most pessimistic way in Of Mice and Men by featuring what is thought to be an unbreakable friendship leading to the unattainability of happiness, an inevitable betrayal, and the destruction of one's soul.

Being utterly true to someone is shown to be a great burden in the novel Of Mice and Men, especially as it leads to the eternal unhappiness George. The book constantly has the readers asking themselves the question, what does it mean to truly be loyal to someone? On multiple occasions, George answers this query as he prioritizes Lennie over himself, whether the results are positive or negative. To begin with, the novel opens with the dynamic duo rushing for safety after Lennie allegedly raped a woman in their old town. Due to Lennie’s inability to comprehend stressful situations and control himself, George has had to live under terrible conditions. Therefore, because he is so loyal to Lennie, George drops everything good in his life and moves on to much worse things to keep Lennie safe. Furthermore, this constant cycle caused by both Lennie’s disability and George’s faithfulness is shown to be taking a toll on the latter’s mental health. George has clear anger issues and, on multiple occasions, has intense outbursts at Lennie. This quotation demonstrates that even George understands the fact that if he was not so

true to Lennie, he could live a peaceful life with no anguish or worry. Therefore, George is extremely frustrated as he is unable to do anything about it. Consequently, a major arc in the novel follows the attainability of the American Dream and if it is truly possible by George, Lennie, and Candy, a fellow disabled character. The reader understands that both Candy and George, being mentally able, could cadge enough money to buy at least their starter ranch. Nevertheless, with Lennie around, the dream can never truly materialize as George would never even think about actually abandoning his trusty companion. As the dream ranch represents literal heaven to these three characters, the storyline proves that by merely loving the troublemaking Lennie, George is closing any window of opportunity for himself to reach his ultimate happiness. This quotation refers to the fact that George knew from the moment Lennie first stirred up trouble that he would never be able to be happy and achieve his goal. By being so stubborn in never letting Lennie go off alone, George has stopped himself from ever truly being satisfied in life and only made up for it by lying to both himself and Lennie.
While John Steinbeck rightfully shows all Of Mice and Men readers that loyalty will always hold a person back through the example of George and his dream ranch, the author also explained how easily loyalty can lead to an act of betrayal through the examples of two parallel groups, Candy and his dog and George and Lennie. First and foremost, at the beginning of the novel, the reader experiences an extremely depressing killing of Candy’s dog. This dog had been Candy’s partner from puppyhood and in a way, Candy betrays his trust right at the dog’s demise. By allowing a stranger to kill his dog, Candy also allows his dog to be panicked and upset in his last moments instead of happy, which is what Candy owes him for being a lifetime companion. The disabled elderly admits his mistake to George. Even Candy realizes that the only way he could have been truly loyal to his dog was by killing him himself. Accordingly, another way that Steinbeck shows the path from devotion to treachery is through George’s murder of Lennie. Likewise to Candy and his dog’s relationship is George and Lennie’s. Lennie is often given animal-like traits, being compared to a bear on multiple occasions, and in a way, George has been his owner. The parallel between the two groups is a great foreshadowing to Lennie’s betrayal. After Lennie’s murder if Curley's wife a the climax of the story, a hunting party is organized in order to find and punish Lennie, which eventually leads to George’s betrayal. At first, George merely wants to get Lennie sent to prison. George’s constant struggle with wondering if he actually wants to get Lennie caught or not, and this attempt to convince himself that Lennie would be fine, shows that George new he was betraying Lennie only because he would die all alone on the run. Upon realizing that the always bellicose Curley, the devil-figure in the novel, planned on killing Lennie in the most harrowing way, George attempts to spare Lennie from the turmoil and wound up killing his best friend. Many readers debate whether this was an act of revenge for all of the hardships Lennie made George endure or ultimate loyalty, but the fact that George betrays his best friend is not contentious. John Steinbeck shows that there really is no true way to say your final goodbyes to a loved one, as Candy betrays his dog’s trust by not killing him, and George is disloyal to Lennie by doing just that. This pivotal moment completely solidifies George’s faithfulness towards Lennie, and shows that there is an extremely fine line between devotion and falsity that many tend to cross both voluntarily and involuntarily.
John Steinbeck shows how easily someone loyal can go from one extreme to another by having George end Lennie’s life, but he also brings to light the aftermath of committing such a heinous deed, the emotional destruction of the traitor.

George sacrifices his morality and emotional well-being for Lennie by killing him. To further explain, George crying preceding Lennie’s shooting, shown by his mispronunciation of words such as family, signals his wretched state and the beginning of his emotional downfall. This ruination is caused by George not having an actual choice of not killing Lennie, as he is so attached to the disabled character that he can not bring himself to see Lennie go through all the agony Curley would have caused him. In this case, it can be presumed that George does not want to kill Lennie, judging by the former’s past actions. Even during the moment of the murder, George is constantly hesitating from the being so emotional and unwilling to end Lennie’s life. Notwithstanding, George kills Lennie and is left immensely distraught. This quotation shows how traumatized George is after seeing his best friend die right in front of him, especially since he had caused it. The reader can infer that George’s devotion to Lennie will last even after Lennie’s death and that George will never move on. Coupled with this fact, the situation is made even more sorrowful as the reader realizes that George, due to Lennie, once and for all shut his window of opportunity to

happiness. While George does not want to kill his best friend, he understands that for Lennie, this would be the best way to go, and thus makes the ultimate sacrifice, one of his own soul.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is a novel which strays from the regular portrayal of loyalty. While most stories interpret this quality as a positive characteristic, Steinbeck shows it as something completely divergent. With the evidence present in the novel, such as George’s inability to achieve happiness, betrayal of Lennie, and destruction of his own soul, it is shown that true loyalty is, more often than not, a negative quality. When someone’s happiness, character, morality, and life, are destroyed by the entirely loyal friendship they share with another, how can loyalty possibly be considered a fine quality?