Mercy Killing In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Terri Schiavo was a woman who was brain dead, and had her husband and her family

fighting over whether she should continue to live in pain or die. In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, one of the main characters, George has a similar situation as Terri’s husband. When his best friend, Lennie kills Curley’s wife, george has to make a big decision on whether to put Lennie out of his misery or let him live and suffer from the pain of what Curley would do to him. The novel supports that mercy killing is a good decision to make for people you love and care about.

George’s responsibility is to take care and protect Lennie and George’s decision to kill Lennie himself was one of his ways of protecting him. Since Lennie was a child he isn’t bright so George looks out for him. George hoped that after what happened with the girl and her dress that he would learn his lesson, but then Lennie ends up killing Curley’s wife and George knows that Curley would love to get revenge on Lennie. When Carlson was talking about killing Candy’s dog he said “He’s all stiff with rheumatism. He ain’t no
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Why’n’t you shoot him” (Steinbeck 44). This shows that the dog was in pain and old. Carlson knows the dogs in pain and that's why he would rather just put him down rather than let him continue to live in pain. Once Curley knew that Lennie killed his wife he wanted to kill him saying “when you see ‘um, don’t give ‘im no chance. Shoot for his guts” (Steinbeck 97). George knows that Curley’s going to hurt him and he doesn’t want anyone to hurt Lennie or torture him. So he took Lennie’s life, that way it would be quick and over with and so Lennie wouldn’t feel any pain. By George taking Lennie’s life so he wouldn’t have to suffer, he gives mercy to his best