Euthanasia In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Have you ever seen a starving, stray, dog walking across the street and felt sorry for it? Didn't you wish you could stop its misery? Well the chance that someone would give it a home is sadly very slim so why not turn to another option that will save it from its misery? What about ending its life a bit early so it doesn't have to meet the gruesome end we know it will meet anyways. In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, the main character, George, does just this when he shoots his best friend, Lennie, after Lennie has killed the wife of another character, Curley. George made the hard decision of ending Lennie’s life rather than letting his friend face Curley’s wrath and anger. This story shows that euthanasia, the action of killing

Curley had already had his ego hurt when Lennie crushed his hand. Due to this, George knew exactly what Curley would want to do after he found that Lennie accidentally killed his wife. Just after his wife's body was found George and Slim were talking about the best option of what to do with Lennie when Slim spoke the exact words George didn't want to here. Slim said, “But Curley's gonna want to shoot ‘im” (Steinbeck 97). At that moment George knew exactly what he would have to do. He knew Curley would make sure LEnnie hurt and suffered a lot. George knew he would have to take the situation into his own hands so Lennie didn’t have to deal with that violence. Similarly Carlson shot Candy’s dog to put it out of it’s misery and afterwards Candy said, “I oughtta of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn’t oughtta of let no stranger shoot my dog” (Steinbeck 61). This shows how when your bestfriend is in pain or has the inevitable coming to them then let it be by your hand and not someone else’s. George did what was right and took matters into his own hands. Some can argue that this was just in a book that was written 60 years ago so how can it have anything to do with current day