Who Is Responsible For Lennie's Death

Mercy killing has touched the lives of many people, with indeterminant reasons which have been baffling judicial courts for many years. People claim to kill an individual to relieve his/her constant pain, but the things that occur during the death gives doubt into the community’s mind causing great conflict in society. In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, an example of this situation is presented when a long friendship ends after one of the friends kills the other in order to save the other from future harm. The friendship is between George and Lennie, who met at an early age and traveled together during the Great Depression. Lennie has a disability which makes him act incompetent and childish causing George to take care of him throughout

their lives. They were both working at a ranch until Lennie, who is known to get into trouble frequently, accidentally kills the rancher’s boss’s daughter-in-law and runs to hide. At this hiding location, George knows that either Lennie can run away and soon die in the woods or be confronted by the daughter-in-law’s husband, Curley, and die slowly from a bullet wound. Instead, George takes the initiative and kills him and thinks that he will be saved from suffering. George’s killing has no proof of a mercy killing and is most definitely a murder.
George should be held liable for murdering Lennie since there is not adequate evidence to prove why he did it.

Some people may claim that they killed to prevent them from suffering, but sometimes they do it just to satisfy themselves because they can not handle another person leaving or acting in a way they have never seen before. Recently, a case has been brought up of an autistic son being sexually abused; his mother’s claims are “He told her Tzekov had shoved feces in his mouth, stuck needles under his fingernails, and stabbed him in the hand repeatedly in addition to sexual abuse” (Rosenberg 3). Authenticity of these statements are hard to justify due to the mother being unaware until her son gave her a crude description of what happened. If the son was being stabbed in the hand, then should not there be marks or scars which the mother would notice? This would prove that these statements may be false since obvious evidence would appear on the son if what she said was true. She might have been aiming to try and get her husband into jail for her own desires. This may also reflect George’s intentions to separate himself from Lennie and still live without the burden of Lennie being around. George has not talked much about how Lennie is useful to George which shows that George may not appreciate Lennie’s presence. Even when Lennie gets work, Lennie gets into trouble and the boss does not see the functionality he offers. George has expressed his desire to relieve his burden of Lennie when he says “... if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an’ work, an’ no trouble… Why, I could stay in a cat house all night… An’ whatta I got… You can’t keep a job and you lose me ever’ job I get” (Steinbeck 12). George is showing his desire to have Lennie removed from his life so he can live freely. George visits a cat house causing him to realize how life would be like without worrying about Lennie. Lennie gets into various kinds of trouble so after numerous times

of George having to clean up Lennie’s mess, he may have given up and decided to let him go to live his own life. George only respects Lennie for his previous actions, although currently he does not display affection for Lennie’s purpose to live. He only believes that he is supporting him because he feels an obligation to do so. George has frequently indicated why he would want to leave Lennie for his own prosperity and ease of living.
Evidence of George’s merciful thoughts for killing Lennie is nonexistent proving that he only wanted for Lennie to be gone. George never mentioned how he wanted to save Lennie from future harm, it was only implied that Lennie would not be able to survive on his own. This is similar to a man who prematurely kills his wife in the hospital and a bioethicist comments “But taking someone's life to end their suffering -- and doing so without a doctor's diagnosis of a terminal illness -- raises thorny issues, Caplan said” (Lynch 1) The man says that he was fulfilling a ‘death pact’ of if either of them are in a critical state of life, then they should kill the other to end the suffering. Although, the bioethicist states that she was never diagnosed with a terminal disease and as far as the husband knows, he claims that she was in a state where she would never return to having quality of life. The husband may have wanted to avoid medical costs and he saw her as useless. The husband is much older than the wife which may imply the husband only sees his wife as a tool of pleasure so if she can not deliver, then he has no business with her. George also never had a clear mind on why he killed Lennie, he wanted to get over the fact that he will die eventually. George could not cope with the aftermath that Curley may give him of a slow, wretched death.
Some may argue that George’s friendship with Lennie is too strong for George to kill his lifelong partner. Although, the cases that have occurred above are even closer relationships, but unfortunately they ended in a death of an individual. George’s relationship may have seemed strong with Lennie, however George had many things to deal with when he was with Lennie. Even if George had good intentions prevent Lennie from future harm, it is not his decision to kill Lennie, especially when he is completely able to make decisions for himself. Lennie may have a mental disability, nonetheless he should have complete control over what he desires. A book has been released based on euthanasia and a lawyer reviews and comments based on his interpretation and said “The right to self-determination is bolstered by the addition of the right to privacy, which preserves personal issues from public or state examination, as long as others' lives are not adversely affected. For Whiting, the issue is one of personal conscience” (Eisendrath 1). Eisendrath has pulled out that euthanasia should be the person who is being killed should have the right to kill in prevention of further pain and suffering. Lennie should have had the choice of whether he wanted to die by the hands of George, he may have preferred dying with rabbits since he enjoys them very much. Lennie displays personal conscience which Eisendrath may agree with him having the choice of what type of path he would like to follow. Another individual who supports euthanasia has been diagnosed with a terminal illness who stated “One comfort, is that she was able to make the choice to end her suffering before she was unable to function at all. That's what SHE wanted. Cancer took her but in the end, she got to decide when enough was enough” (qtd. in Briggs 2). This woman has had a diagnosed terminal illness of a brain tumor and experiences forgetfulness of important things and frequent, violent seizures which has caused her to make the decision of an early death. She has a good reason, it was her choice, and her family was content with her decision meaning that this is more acceptable as a mercy killing. George never took upon the challenges that Lennie will be facing and this may not affect many people, but as clearly stated by the woman, she made her own decision and so should Lennie. George can not provide a reason that would not seem selfish for him and Lennie would most likely try to prevent death at any cost. These factors prove that George’s actions are uncivilized and Lennie was taken advantage of with a gun.
George’s actions has been an injustice to humanity by killing Lennie with no credible reason or purpose. George surprisingly kills Lennie when Lennie was trying to escape from further trouble which is ironic because Lennie was following what George said. George may claim that he does not think that Lennie will survive alone, but that choice should be up to Lennie, and not George. Euthanasia is for a person to willingly kill themselves under terminal illness or something of the sort but George takes the responsibility upon himself. George holds no right over Lennie about his existence and he only does it for his personal gain. He wanted to live freely, like other people who claimed mercy killing, however the method and environment of the scene does not call for a merciful intention. If mercy killing was up to another individual who is close to you, then families today would be torn apart proving that George’s relationship with Lennie does not affect the consequences of death.