John Steinbeck Dehumanize Lennie Small

In John Steinbeck’s 1930’s classic novella, Of Mice and Men, we are introduced to one of the main characters, Lennie Small. Lennie is developed as a mentally handicapped, who doesn’t know his strengths and weaknesses, who forgets everything, and who acts like a child. By this development, Steinbeck dehumanizes Lennie in order to show the mentally handicapped population has no chance of achieving the American Dream. Lennie doesn’t know his strengths and weakness, and how to control his strengths. At the end of chapter five, Curley’s wife comes into the barn, where Lennie is alone. Lennie is trying to figure out how to hide a dead puppy, that he killed by petting it too much and too hard. They start talking and Lennie keeps telling her that

Most of the time it’s over things that actually small, but big to him. In chapter one, Lennie finds a live mouse, and keeps it. He ends up killing it and continues to keep it, and pet it. George finds out that he has the mouse, and that it’s dead, and throws it away. This upsets Lennie a lot. “He heard Lennie’s whimpering cry and wheeled about. ‘ Blubberin’ like a baby! Jesus Christ! A big guy like you.’ Lennie’s lip quivered and tears started in his eyes. ‘Aw Lennie!’ George put his hand on Lennie’s shoulder. ‘I ain’t taking it away jus’ for meanness. That mouse ain’t fresh Lennie; and besides you’re you’ve broke it pettin’ it. You get another mouse that’s fresh and I’ll let you keep it a little while”(9). Lennie is crying really hard over a dead mouse, that he killed, because he can’t keep it. This shows he acts like a child because he’s crying over something that he can’t keep, just like babies and little kids do. There is one difference, Lennie is a grown man crying over a little dead mouse. This isn’t the only he cries in the book. In chapter 3, Curley got mad at Lennie for smiling because Lennie was thinking about the ranch, and the rabbits. Curley starts beating up Lennie and Lennie won’t defend himself. He starts crying and asks George to make him stop. He eventually just grabs and crushes Curley’s hand but that was after George told him to defend himself. This also shows he’s a child because he’s crying because someone is beating him

At the end of the book, in chapter 6, George is talking to Lennie, and telling him about the ranch one last time. Because of all the damage Lennie has caused, George thinks that he has to kill him: “He reached in his side pocket and brought out Carlson’s Luger; he snapped off the safety’ … ‘And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger” (105-106). Lennie is killed because of all the harm he has caused to the innocence. George knew he had to do something, and he didn’t want anyone else murdering Lennie. George knew exactly where Lennie would be, because George told Lennie to come back to this very spot, if he ever got into big trouble. This foreshadows Lennie’s fate too. George knew if he had to come back here, he had done something very wrong and he would have to kill Lennie. Lennie’s last moments were thinking of the ranch, and animals, and food. His American Dream was dead.
Some may say that this wasn’t dehumanizing, some may say that if Curley and the others got ahold of Lennie, his fate would have been worse. If Curley had gotten ahold of him, he would have destroyed him, and his death would have been a lot more painfully and a lot more gruesome. Some may say this would be true because of Lennie’s disabilities, but murder IS the ultimate form of dehumanizing because either