Killing out of love is different than murder or killing with hate. John Steinbeck expresses this in the novel Of Mice and Men. George Milton and Lennie Small, who are two best friends, travel from ranch to ranch. Lennie is a bulky thirty-something-year-old with a developmentally delayed brain, he has the intelligence of a three-year-old. George is the caretaker who helps Lennie survive. Later in the book, Lennie's actions start to get dangerous, so George is forced to kill Lennie. One reason George makes the correct decision is that he keeps Lennie away from society, so now Lennie cannot hurt or kill anyone else. A second reason George makes the right decision is that George prevents Lennie from suffering in pain because Curley (the boss of the ranch’s son) plans to shoot Lennie in the stomach. George does this by shooting him in the back of the head which is a painless, instant death. A third reason relates to Lennie's standing in life. If Lennie were to be caught, he would be locked up and treated poorly. George is justified in killing Lennie because George is protecting both Lennie and the world around him, therefore he made the correct decision.
Firstly, George rightly kills Lennie so he can keep him away from the rest of society. Clearly, Lennie's problem is getting worse. George is better off killing Lennie because is saves many people's
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This helps Lennie because he would go crazy if he was left alone in a cage. Crooks (an African American ranch worker) talks to Lennie about what it is like in an insane asylum in the 1930’s. Crooks mentions to Lennie that in an asylum “they’ll take you to the booby hatch. They’ll tie ya up with a collar, like a dog.” ( 72) Since Lennie is mentally disabled, he would go crazy because he does not have George to talk to. It would be torture to him. George knows the only way to protect Lennie from going crazy is to kill