Selfishness In Of Mice And Men

Of Mice and Men is a story about two unlikely friends that are trying to get by during The Great Depression. George and Lennie worked together, traveled together, and everything inbetween. But, when Lennie does something unthinkable, George has to do something he would have never thought he would do in his life, he must shoot Lennie. In the end of the novel, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, George’s dilemma is whether he acted out of selflessness or selfishness; George however acted selflessly by protecting Lennie’s dignity.
Curly is furious when he finds out that his wife has been killed. With the only person missing being Lennie, Curly instantly jumps to conclusions and assumes that Lennie did it; which he did but by accident. Curly is

set on finding and killing Lennie himself. “I’m gonna get him. I’m going for my shotgun. I’ll kill the big son-of-a-bitch myself. I’ll shoot ‘im in the guts (96).” However, George tries to protect Lennie by talking to Curly about not having Curly do it. “But listen, Curly. The poor bastard’s nuts. Don’t shoot ‘im. He di’n’t know what he was doin’ (98).” During the statement and the killing of Lennie, Curly and George must have worked something out because it ended up with George shooting Lennie. George was protecting Lennie’s dignity by talking it through with Curly to decide who was going to shoot Lennie. With George doing the shooting, Lennie knew that he was safe with George and if Curly would have done the shooting, it probably would have been more stressful for Lennie and Curly might have gotten hurt in the process.