Relationship Between George And Lennie In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

George and Lennie are basically thrown together, as most relationships like that tend to have many conflict points in them. Although George is making his own decision to keep Lennie around, you can gather he feels he has no other option. Lennie tends to forget, which tends to make George question their entire companionship. When the new boss comes to meet the pair, it takes a turn for the south. Though Lennie only slipped up once by repeating George’s compliment, the boss still found it a little odd the “big man” isn’t much of a talker; which makes him suspicious, therefore putting George and Lennie on his watch list. After George and Lennie are alone in the bunkhouse, George has one of his famous insulting fits. “When the sounds of his footsteps had died away, George turned on Lennie. “So you wasn’t gonna say a word. You was gonna leave your big flapper shut and leave me do the talkin’. Damn near lost us the job.” Lennie stared hopelessly at his hands. “I forgot, George.” “Yeah you always forgot. You always forget, an’ I got to talk you out of it.””1 Lennie points out that George said they were cousins, to which George responds with, “Well that was a lie. An’ I’m damn glad it was. If I was a

George automatically got a bad feeling and told Lennie to stay away from her at all cost, “Listen to me you crazy bastard,” he said fiercely. “Don’t you even take a look at that bitch. I don’t care what she says and what she does. I seen ‘em poison before, but I never seen no piece of jailbait worse than her. You leave her be.”3 Although Lennie was only looking at how pretty he found her, a woman was the same reason they got run from their last town. Lennie didn’t mean any harm then, and he wouldn’t mean any harm it if it was to occur again; but the people surrounding him don’t know that. Curley already has abhorred Lennie, and an incident with his wife would surely get Lennie