The novela Of Mice and Men was set in the midst of the Great Depression. The novela focused around two men; Lennie Smalls and George Milton, two traveling migrants looking for work in the money deprived American financial system. Lennie is mentally unstable and has a troublesome time performing at the level of a stable minded person.
In the novela Of Mice and Men, George had to decide if he would rather have Lennie die at his hands or in the hands of Curley. Furthermore, if George hadn’t killed Lennie some negatives would be, George would have no choice but to watch Curley and the workers beat Lennie or even more likely kill him. If Curley could have been talked into not killing Lennie, Lennie would have been deposited in a jail cell. In jail, he would always be scared and or lost without George (Steinbeck 97), whom he depends on for many simple services that George provides. If Lennie was jailed, George
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One positive for George is he gets to relinquish the burden of having to protect Lennie. George wouldn’t have to worry about if Lennie would have another episode such as when Lennie killed his pup (Steinbeck 85) or when he killed Curley’s wife (Steinbeck 91). George didn’t want Lennie to die scared, George knew if he shot Lennie when he was dreaming about their future (Steinbeck 106) he would die happy. I believe that George made the correct decision in killing Lennie and not letting Curley get the chance to kill or beat him. Slim plays into Georges’ correct decision when he says "We might," he said. "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 97). George knows Lennie wouldn’t be able to survive in jail or from a beating by Curley so he killed him putting him out of his