Of Mice And Men Curley's Relationship Essay

Of Mice and Men is a story of the co-dependent relationship between an intelligent migrant worker and his only friend who struggles with understanding his own strength and social etiquette. In the final section of the story Lennie makes the mistake of accidentally killing Curley’s wife. As all the workers find out they set out in groups to find and kill Lennie. During all this chaos George grabs Carlson’s luger and goes out to meet Lennie at their hiding place. Once there George makes a decision out of courageous love to kill Lennie before Curley and the others get a hold of Lennie. George’s decision to kill Lennie was for courageous love because Curley would’ve killed Lennie in a much more painful way, Lennie would have ended up in a mental

institution, and Lennie was a threat to society and those around him.
George killed Lennie because if Curley had gotten to him Lennie's death would have been much more painful and gruesome.

In the text, Curley angrily says, “I’m going for my shotgun. I’ll kill that son-of-a-bitch myself. I’ll shoot ’im in the guts”(96). Curley says this as he sees his dead wife for the first time, without any mourning or despair he wants to go out and take revenge on Lennie. Curley is still angry at Lennie about his hand being crushed and this whole situation makes Curley as angry as ever. Curley wants to kill Lennie by shooting him in the gut with a shotgun. This is an extremely painful and slow way to die. It involves dozens of BBs penetrating the stomach and slowly the victim will begin to bleed out, from all the bullet holes, in extreme pain. On average it takes multiple hours for a person to die from a wound to the stomach. George killing Lennie, saves him from hours of pain and misery that a shotgun shot to the stomach would inflict. On top of that Lennie has the mind of an eight year old child, so he wouldn’t understand what was going on and this painful wound would cause many tears and a lot of

crying.
If by some miracle Curley decided not to kill Lennie, Lennie would have been placed in a mental institution.

At a mental institution Lennie would lose all the positive qualities of living. As a dangerous incredibly strong man Lennie would have been tied and chained to his bed and locked up in his room. At the institution Lennie would never be able to see George again let alone have a conversation with another human being. If being tied and chained was deemed no longer humane Lennie would be placed in a Utica Crib, this was basically a coffin except it had bars like a crib. Then Lennie would be placed in a locked up in a room all alone and worst of all he would be without his best friend. Often times the patients of mental institutions were left to rot away in their own feces, these institutions were considered to be hell on earth. Also the doctors were constantly using the mental patients for experiments and to find out what caused them to have these mental

disabilities.
Lennie’s immense strength and lack of understanding caused him to be a dangerous threat to society. Multiple times throughout the story Lennie didn’t know his own strength and injured innocent animals and people. In the story Lennie says, “I done another bad thing” (103). In this context Lennie was telling George how he killed Curley’s wife, only when he tells him this he has no understanding on how this situation was any different than killing a mouse or touching a girl’s dress. Lennie’s lack of understanding shows how he doesn’t learn from his past mistakes and doesn’t understand his own physical strength. In about one week, Lennie assaults a woman, breaks every bone in a man’s hand, almost injures Crooks, and snaps a woman’s neck. Lennie can’t run away with George because George has to lookout for future victims. If George doesn’t handle the situation properly, Lennie’s next mistake would be on George’s conscience because Lennie can’t remember and learn from his previous mistakes.
At the end of the story George helped Lennie to have happy thoughts before he passed on. George did this by putting into Lennie’s mind why they were such good friends and how Lennie gets to tend the rabbits. Lennie died having happy thoughts and without pain. George’s decision to kill Lennie was for courageous love because Curley would’ve killed Lennie in a much more painful way, Lennie would have ended up in a mental institution, and Lennie was a threat to society and those around him.