The Humane Option In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

The Humane Option George shot his best friend. Was it the right choice? In John Steinbeck’s 1937 award-winning novel, Of Mice And Men, George Milton and Lennie Small are two men wandering the Great Depression-era United States looking for work. They land a job on a ranch in Salinas, California, and Lennie messes everything up by accidentally killing the boss’ daughter-in-law. The only humane and right choice that George had was to shoot and kill Lennie. One reason behind this is that worse would have happened to the pair if George let Lennie live. For instance, after Curley’s Wife is killed, Curley says, “I’m gonna shoot the guts outta that big bastard myself!” (Steinbeck, 98) This portrays Curley’s raw anger with Lennie, and since George

The reader knows that Lennie was not shameful or sad because Lennie says, “I thought you was mad at me” (106) then George responds, “No, Lennie. I ain’t mad.” To this, Lennie says “[Let’s] do it now. Let’s get that place now.” This illustrates that Lennie had positive emotions in his mind prior to his death and was optimistic of his future. Furthermore, prior to Lennie’s death, George is telling him about their future together where they will own their own farm, live off the land, and Lennie will get to tend his own rabbits, which has been his lifelong dream and a prominent symbol throughout the entire novel. This symbol stands for Lennie’s happiness and contentedness with his life, and a symbol for the success of the two men. On page 105, Steinbeck writes, “‘An you getta tend the rabbits.’ Lennie giggled with happiness. “An’ live on the [fat of] the land.” This portrays perfectly how Lennie believes the false conception that his dream is within arm’s reach. However, his dream will just never come true; the idea that it is reachable is entirely fabricated by George to make Lennie happy. This makes his killing of lennie that much easier for him, considering that George knew it was better than his murder occurring at a time where he is sad and shameful of his actions. Although one could argue that George did not make the right decision in killing