The book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, is a tale set during the Great Depression, which is both heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time. It teaches lessons about the importance of dreams, friends, and the need for sacrifice. In doing so, it includes several examples of euthanasia or in other words, mercy killing. At one point in the story, George is forced to kill his good friend Lennie which has been a good companion to him for many years. Although George clearly loves the man, he should euthanize him so he doesn’t have to suffer through what Curley might do to him and so he doesn’t have to deal with the discrimination he gets from other men like Curley. In the novel, Lennie accidentally kills a young woman who is the wife of the boss's son, Curley. Once Curley figures out that Lennie did this he says he’ll shoot him in his guts which is a very painful and slow death. George says that he won’t let anyone hurt him around the same time that Curley said this. Later when Slim, the jerkline skinner, asks George where Lennie would’ve went, he says Lennie would’ve gone South even though he would’ve gone North. In doing this, he gives himself time to euthanize Lennie before the other men get there. This saves Lennie from getting shot in the gut by Curley which would’ve …show more content…
The man that discriminates him for these things is Curley which is a man who doesn’t like other men that are larger than him and stronger than him. He also doesn’t like that fact that Lennie is slow and it bothers him that he doesn’t respond to him when he speaks to him directly and later in the book, he learns not to mess with Lennie. This is because Lennie breaks Curley’s hand while Curley tries to beat him up. The only thing that led to this was Lennie laughing at something that had nothing to do with Curley and Curley obviously takes it the wrong way and takes it upon himself to beat Lennie