Similarities Between George Milton In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Do you think you could work up the strength to take the life of another person, especially one of your own loved ones? In John Steinbecks’s novella “Of Mice and Men” well known character George Milton is forced to face this heartbreaking decision. In this novella you were taken through the lives of two best friends, Lennie Small a giant sized man with an even larger heart, who is a prisoner inside of his own body due to mental illness and his leading man George Milton a smaller built and more head strong man who takes lennie on as his own responsibility caring for him and looking out for him as if he is his own. Through the story you will see these two men taking on their journey through life with one another encountering new friends, as well as well as new struggles attempting to find success in the American dream until it is shattered by a hard decision that faces George resulting from a sequence of misfortunate events. George gets torn between giving up his best friend to be locked away, giving him up to face a hard death, or lastly to provide lennie with a more merciful death himself. At the end of the story george realizes that the best thing he can do for lennie is

kill him, himself.

George looks after Lennie the way an adult looks after a child teaching him and picking up his messes although Lennie is not a child but instead a mentally handicapped, full grown man who is seen to be responsible for his own actions. Because the other men don’t quite understand Lennie’s disorder they believe he should be punished like any other man would be. Not only is George going to be punished for his accident but because of curly’s grudge against him Curly wants to make Lennie suffers a hard death “Im gonna get him. I’m going for my shotgun. I’ll kill the big son-of-a-***** myself. I’ll shoot him in the guts.”(Steinbeck 96). George's love and understanding for the way Lennie was, was so strong he knew that Lennie wouldn’t have ever meant to kill Curly’s wife or harm her on purpose so he knew he could not allow him to suffer the way curly had intended on him to. After seeing the suffering Curly had set out for Lennie George realized that he had to kill Lennie himself before Curly had to chance to get to him. George knew this would be a hard and painful decision but he chose to bare the pain so Lennie wouldn't have to. As heartbreaking as it is George made the right decision.

Lennie wasn’t able to make logical decisions for himself the way most people can.

He wasn’t capable of seeing how things could turn out badly so it would have been unfair for him to be punished like someone who could. For Lennie to have been given up to law and been locked away wouldn’t have been any good for him or anyone else. He would have become a prisoner to himself locked up inside his own mind scared, confused, and forced into insanity only for him to die alone in an empty room. In the book well respected character Slim says to George “...An’s s’pose they lock him up an’ strap him down and put him in a cage. That ain’t no good, George.”(Steinbeck 97) this helps George realize the best choice is to kill Lennie and save him the misery of being locked away and imprisoned like an

animal.

Because of Lennie's past we could see that this line of misfortunate events were nothing new for the two men. In the book through George’s words to Lennie you see how often Lennie messes up “...Jus’keep me shovin’ all over the country all the time. An’ that ain’t the worst. You get into trouble. You do bad things and I got to get you out.”(Steinbeck 11).. If George wouldn’t have killed lennie some other trouble would have found them repeating the same cycle forcing them to be back on the run or maybe worse. The next time Lennie got into trouble it might not have been just one life but many or maybe not the life of an adult but child. George knew if he didn’t take care of Lennie he might not get the opportunity to next time and knowing that something bad could happen to Lennie wasn’t an option so he realized it was his responsibility and he did what he had to do that would be most beneficial for his friend.

While the decision George made was hard it had to be done. Lennie’s incapability to learn from his mistakes along with his enormous body and strength made his fate inevitable.
If George wouldn’t have made the decision to kill lennie himself, Lennie would have faced a hard more painful death, been locked away by himself to be mistreated, or repeating the same mistakes so even if he would have lived he would not be any better off. I think we can all agree no matter how much we loved lennie it had to be done.