George Killed Lennie's Death

Imagine the scenario of this. An unstoppable, high-speed train is headed towards a person’s grandmother. In order to save her, they have to change the tracks, but that would mean killing the unsuspecting group of people walking over. They cannot stop the train. Who do they save? This ultimatum can sway even the most moral people because it asks one to make a difficult decision. Difficult decisions, like that of the scenario, create a feeling of inevitable betrayal. Many, unfortunately, are familiar with that feeling; people usually describe it as a stab in the back, a breach of trust, a pain that cannot be undone for a long time. Sometimes, like in the story Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, that stab in the back is fatal. Lennie’s death,

The definition of murder, according to the Oxford dictionary, is the “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.” ‘Premeditation’ can be seen when George steals the gun from Carlson, intending to shoot Lennie. The second part of this definition is that the harm inflicted was done from one human being to another; as previously mentioned, Lennie is, in fact, a human. Digging deeper, it can be seen that George killed Lennie because of his disability. To prove this, the definition of euthanasia is, “the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease.” Per the technology of the past, there was no way of knowing how painful or painless a gunshot to the back of the head really was. One might argue that a bullet to the stomach is more painful, but the definition is painless. Furthermore, Lennie's disability did not cause him pain; it caused George pain. This can be seen when George gets angry at the beginning of the book, swearing that he could live his best life if Lennie wasn’t always “causing problems”. The problems he causes can each be identified by his disability and the fact that he has to care for him. Therefore, George did not kill him because it was a “painful disease” for Lennie to suffer, he killed him because he could not handle the painful burden of Lennie. Nevertheless, the compelling evidence for the fact that it was murder is that the dream George had was easier to complete with one. For example, when Candy was in a panic about the fact that Curley would kill Lennie, he asks if the dream was “all off” since Lennie would soon die. George, however, ignores this comment and during this time, he sneaks away to grab the gun. He knew that his dream was at stake. Finally, even when he had shot Lennie, George knew he would be backed up by the group and would not suffer the consequences of his actions. This can be seen when Slim comforts George and even offers