Of Mice and Men

Some opinions on what people think about the shooting.

It's tough because one the one hand you have to commend the man for making such a huge sacrifice to spare his friend the torture he might have incurred at the hands of the angry mob after him. One the other hand, it is murder, any way you slice it he killed Lennie. I think that he had Lennie's forgiveness and I think Lennie sensed what had to be done, but I hate to condone something so terrible. I wish he has found another choice to make, there were other choices he could have made and I kind of feel like he was lazy about it. He could have found a place to hide Lennie and then tried to explain, they could have kept running, he could have begged for mercy from the men, it was as if he was tired of having to look out for Lennie and just gave up, gave in, and shot him.

I feel that way, too, Clane.  Reading the book makes the reader feel extremely sorry for Lennie...he makes decisions on impulse.  More like an animal than a human being.  He is incapable of understanding his own strength and understanding the subtleties of life.  I don't think George was right.  Murder is murder, and it is not for George to decide when Lennie should go to the great beyond.  George simply got tired of caring for an adult who acts like a child...a terrible burden on George and the way he wants to live his life.  No matter how much your child annoys you or messes up, you can't just kill him.

I don't think any murder is justified, but I do think George cares for Lennie and the shooting is not done out of anger or even that he is sick of Lennie and the burder he represents.

I believe that George did what he had to do. Yes, it was murder, and it was also sad, but if he would have let Lennie live Lennie would have just done something else in another town. I loved Lennie in this book, but the truth is in that fact Lennie was so mentally hanicapped there was nothing else George could have done. Like Candy's dog, Lennie was no good for himself or anyone around him. I do not believe in murder, and yes, that's what George did, but in a way George didn't have a choice.

Most of my freshmen consistently feel that the shooting was unjustified, regardless of what horrible fate may have awaited Lennie at the hands of the men who were after them. As clane said, there were other options (that freshmen are so good at coming up with) other than murder. At that point, I usually explain that it is important to keep in mind what Steinbeck may have been trying to impart to the reader. It speaks to Steinbeck's compassion for people who had no home, no family and who led a nomadic existence during that time in California's history. The stresses of that type of life were intense, and friendships and relationships were complex (or just didn't exist for many).

Interesting, leagye. Most of my freshmen (who are all boys) believe that George had no other choice but to save Lennie from a worse kind of death at the hands of Curley and his men. The action is murder, but my boys argue that it's a kind of mercy killing. George gets irritated with Lennie, yes, but George still cares very much about what happens to his mentally handicapped friend. We talk about what suffering Lennie might have endured otherwise. 

It's important as well to keep Steinbeck's style as a naturalistic writer in mind. It's tough to read much of his work at a time because it is so uniformly grim. People like George and Lennie or the family in The Grapes of Wrath are always going to lose because of forces beyond their control. In this novel Lennie's doom is suggested from the moment we learn that he cannot control himself in his desire to touch soft things, whether it's a girl's dress or a mouse. People don't understand his behavior. Society in Steinbeck's works doesn't tolerate differences like Lennie's. Candy, Crooks, and Curley's wife are also victims in this regard. 

All of my kids loved Lennie, but I think most of them felt that it was a mercy killing and that a worse fate would have awaited Lennie if George hadn't shot him.  They feel sympathetic with George and Lennie.  Both characters are in a bad situation and obviously Lennie can't make a decision for himself.  Yes, if George had were arrested he would be convicted for murder, but most students see the reason and understand the reason he felt he had to do it.  And yes they could run, but they already had to run when they were in Weed.  I think George assumed (and probably rightly so) that it would just happen again.

I think the problem with this issue is that it's easy to forget that George is human also.  We spend our time recognizing Lenny as someone who needs help and George as the provider for that help.  The more we see Lenny leaning on George for help, the more as accept the fact that George needs to help him, that he is almost required to fulfil this role.  What we need to do, though, is put ourselves in George's shoes more closely.  How many times can you continue to follow the exact same actions before you tire of it.  They just ran to this ranch to escape Lenny's actions in Weed.  While I agree George may have been lazy about his reaction to this new problem, he probably recognized the bigger picture.  They could run away from this problem and get work on another ranch, but it would only be a matter of time before they'd be running again.  This horrible cycle has to be heavily weighing on George who wants nothing more than to be a regular working "Joe" who dreams of owning his own ranch.  We've all made rash, poor decisions when overcome with the stress of responsibilty, this was George's.  I suppose we can argue whether his actions were right or wrong forever and ever, but I think that more important that it being right or wrong, it's understandable.