The Bad Side Of Friendship In Of Mice And Men And Friendship

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Friendship. A feeling that is valued by almost everyone in the world. But friendship can be “deadly.” Not in the sense that it can kill a person – maybe it can – but in the sense that it is a very fragile piece of the lives of those who live on Earth. Friendship can be an amazing piece of one’s life, or it can be one the worst aspects of life. When one makes a friend, a true friend, it allows that friend to learn a lot about that person. This could be a good entity, only if that friend is a friend that is not going to betray that individual. However, the bad side of friendship comes with a brutal price to pay. If a friend were to “backstab” that person, and reveal all of their secrets. This is one of the worst things that could ever happen …show more content…

The possibility of getting backstabbed by a friend. Todd May spoke of the three types of friendship Aristotle described, “In the latter, ‘those of who love each other for their utility do not love each other for themselves but in virtue of some good which the get from each other’” (May). These are the friendships of “usefulness” or “personal gain.” And once one person feels like they’re satisfied or the other can’t be of use anymore, that’s when they backstab the other in the back. Those kinds of friendships can be deadly, mentally and physically. Lennie and George in Of Mice and Men didn’t necessarily have a friendship like this, but they had more of a friendship where Lennie was taking “advantage” of George so Lennie could move on in life without as many hardships. However, George had to end up killing Lennie later in the story, “And George raised the gun and steadied it…He pulled the trigger” (Steinbeck 106). Though George didn’t necessarily want to kill Lennie, there were times when George would’ve rather been without Lennie. This could be interpreted many ways, whether it was good for George to kill Lennie or not. But one things for sure, George and Lennie’s friendship was different. George didn’t really want Lennie around all the time, while Lennie wanted George to be there so he could proceed through life. That’s what got Lennie killed. A deadly friendship

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