The Role Of Torture In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Abraham Lincoln once said, “I have always found that mercy brings richer fruits

than strict justice.”In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, George decides to shoot Lennie instead of having Curley mercilessly torture and kill him. George makes the right choice by deciding to kill Lennie, if he didn’t, Curley would torture him and ultimately kill him because of his anger and hatred.

Firstly, if George did not kill Lennie, Curley would have inhumanly killed Lennie. Curley plans to torture Lennie because he has killed his wife and wrecked his hand in the fight earlier in the book. For example: Curley says, “ I’m gonna shoot the guts out of that big bastard myself even if I only got one hand. I’m gonna get im” (98).

Curley threatens to shoot him in the gut so he dies a slow and painful death.

In addition to George trying to prevent Lennie from dying a slow and painful death, George also feels sorry for Lennie and tries to do his best to make sure that Lennie dies contently. And so he asks Slim if they could help Lennie by asking Curley to lock him up instead of killing him so brutally, but Slim replies by saying, “If we could keep Curley in, we might. But Curley’s gonna want to shoot ‘ im. Curley’s still mad about his hand. An s’pose they lock him up an’ strap him down and put him in a cage. That ain’t no good George” (97). George tries to help Lennie from dying a painful death but after Slim tells him that it ain’t no good for Lennie to be locked up in a cage he decides to shoot him.
George has the chance to choose whether or not he should kill Lennie. George decides to choose what he thinks is best for Lennie, and others. George has to kill Lennie because in the end he would have died a horrible death. George just has two options. Life doesn’t always give people a whole stack of options to choose from so people always try to choose the best one. In the end Slim reassures George and says, “Never you mind. A guy got to sometimes”(107). George has no choice but to pick the lesser of the two evils.

The death of Lennie is not only beneficial to George but also to society. Lennie is a big strong man who doesn't know his own strength. Lennie always ends up killing or destroying something in the story. For example the incident where Lennie kills his puppy while playing with it. Lennie says, “Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice. I didn't bounce you hard” (85). Lennie thinks that bouncing a puppy is not dangerous it's just a playful act. Lennie may not have been evil in nature but he is mentally disabled and that could cause trouble not only to others but himself,too.

Death is a form of release for Lennie. Life is precious but theirs is filled with misery, hardship and pain. If Lennie continues to live they would have to keep running for the rest of their lives. They could never settle down like they have dreamed of and they could never fulfill their goals. George feels sorry for Lennie and decides to have mercy on him and shoot him rather than having him brutally murdered by Curley. George makes the right choice because it is the only logical option left. If he didn’t kill Lennie, he would have been subjected to something much worse. Sometimes a person has to do something that may seem very gruesome, but in reality it’s the best thing they could do.