The Right Thing In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Sometimes the right thing to is the hardest thing to do, but it will result in a positive outcome. This is a key theme of the book, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Gary Sinise’s film version of this novel effectively conveys this theme throughout the entire story. This is shown throughout the book and film from events such as Lennie’s fight with Curley, Crooks’s conversation with Lennie, and from George eventually shooting Lennie at the end.
Lennie’s fight with Curley in Chapter 3 is an event that supports the idea that it is the right thing to do. Others will say a fight never ends well, no matter the outcome, but in this case, it shows to the other men that Lennie is not one to mess with. An example of how the fight is the right thing to do is because it stops Curley from messing with Lennie, “The next minute Curley was flopping like a fish on a line” (63). This quote shows that when the big guy (Curley) is finally down, winning the

The most beneficial result from this fight is the fact that it kept Curley from ratting them out, “I think you got your han’ caught in a machine” (64). Before Lennie’s fight, Curley chickens out of a fight with Slim, so when Slim said this to Curley after Lennie’s fight, he meant that if somebody were to ask Curley about his hand, he would say it got caught in a machine. If he had told that Lennie had done it, Slim would have told everyone about how Curley chickens out of a fight with him. So after all, Lennie’s actions of fighting had helps him out because it kept Curley, their biggest problem, out of the equation. A final example of how this fight is the right choice is because it shows what Curley had become, “Curley sat down on the floor looking in wonder at his crushed hand” (64).