George And Lennie's Relationship Essay

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In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, George and Lennie travel together and look after each other to achieve their American Dream. Regardless of the close relationship between George and Lennie, George does not benefit from Lennie other than their old friendship. Throughout the entire novel, despite their constant challenges George continues to take care of Lennie from the start, to the middle, and through the end. From the beginning of the novel, we can see George taking care of Lennie. One example of this was when they were camping out before arriving at the ranch. In the brush, George was interviewing Lennie to make sure he didn’t get in trouble and would keep his job. This is supported by the quote “O.k. Now when we go in to …show more content…

After Lennie killed Curley’s wife, he retreated to the brush. Before George shows up, Lennie is seen hallucinating Aunt Clara speaking to him. This is supported by the quote "I tol' you, 'Min' George because he's such a nice fella an' good to you. ' But you don't never take no care. You do bad things." (101) This quote confirms how in Lennie's mind of this hallucination he knows that he doesn’t do much for George, and essentially is the one that leads both of them into trouble. Lastly, near the ending scene in the brush, Lennie asks if George is mad at what he has done. Steinback says, George said "No, Lennie, I ain't mad. I never been mad, and I ain' now. That's a thing I want ya to know." (106) In this quote George proves throughout the book and even before Lennie’s eventual death that he can’t expect Lennie to help get them out of a mess and still has to in a way care for him in this desperate situation. George says that he’s never been mad no matter what he’s done which therefore also means that George didn’t really expect much from him to not be mad in the first place. To summarize, we see the support and protection that George continuously gave to Lennie and how George even in Lennies final moments wasn’t expecting anything in return from