George Killing Lennie

In Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck, some people think that George killing Lennie was the right thing to do. Others think that George should’ve tried to save him and run away. George made the correct decision to shoot Lennie because Lennie was a danger to society. Lennie had killed many animals, and then accidentally killed Curley’s wife. All the animals got killed because Lennie didn’t know his own strength.“Lennie never done it in meanness. All the time he done bad things, but he never done one of ‘em mean” (Steinbeck). This shows that Lennie does not mean to hurt people. This quote shows that he’s a nice guy, but he doesn’t realize his strength, his mental strength doesn’t compare to his physical strength. Even though Lennie didn’t mean any harm, he was going to have a painful death if Curley killed him. Lennie would have been lynched anyway. Curley was going to

I’ll kill the big son-of-a-bitch myself. I’ll shoot ‘im in the guts. Come on, you guys” (Steinbeck). When Curley says that he’s going to shoot Lennie in the guts it shows that Curley means harm to Lennie. Curley wasn’t Lennie to be punished for what he did. Some other people will argue that George should not have shot Lennie. If Curley and the guys ended up not killing Lennie and locked him up, Lennie, not having George for guidance, would be lost. He would not know how to act and he would be treated poorly because other people didn’t understand how Lennie worked. “If we could keep Curley in, we might. But Curley’s gonna want to shoot ‘im. Curley’s still mad about his hand. An’ s’pose they lock him up an’ strap him down and put him in a cage. That ain’t no good, George” (Steinbeck). This quote shows a little bit of what would happen to Lennie if he went to jail. Lennie would not know how to act if he was locked in a jail cell. There would be more problems if he was locked up. Ultimately, Lennie should have been shot by George rather than Curley or to have be locked