Of Mice and Men

Of Mice And Men

The book that I have read that has really stayed with me is "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck. I really enjoyed reading it which is unusual because I usually don't enjoy reading too much. There was something about George and Lennie's friendship that really made me think. Seeing how they were and how they shared life was really interesting. George didn't have to bother with Lennie, he could have abandoned him and gone on his own way. But he did not do that, he stayed with Lennie watching over him almost like a parent to a child. Even though Lennie always got George in trouble, George never stopped loving him and always stood by him. The friendship they shared went beyond what was not really there they each shared a dream and both knew they meant the world to each other. I felt that if these totally different people could get along and look out for each other, why can't we get along with people who are different than us. They made me realize that I could learn something from them on how to treat people who are different than me. What I also liked about it was the way they never stopped trying to reach their dream. This made me think that if they could work hard for their dream why can't I ?! It showed me that it does not matter where you come from or what you do, it is okay to dream and work as hard as you can to reach it. For all it shows for friendship and loyalty it also shows how sometimes you have to do things you never thought you would do. For example in the end when George is forced to shoot Lennie in the head you would never have thought he would do that, but you can see that under the circumstances he had no other choice. He only had two choices: let the other people get to him first and watch them torture Lennie while he died a long horrible death or do it himself and get it over quickly where Lennie did not know what hit him. This is also true in life, many times we are faced with tough choices and even though they may be the hardest you will have to go through, you know that that is the only way. You come to the realization that everything you thought you were about, can all change with a blink of the eye. Each and every morning when I wake up, I roll out of bed, attempt to do my hair perfectly, and then put on my uniform. Now,for some people this may be a fairly easy decision, but for others, it's a painstaking, mind-boggling,headache-causing thing that they are forced to go through every day of their existence. Unlucky for me, I happen to be the latter. But there are so many decisions that need to be made by each one of us every day, and some are harder than others. Like the decision whether to kill your best-friend or to let somebody else do it. It may sound absurd, but that's the decision George is forced to make in the end of "Of Mice and Men" . At the end of the book when Lennie is being searched for, there are three choices George had. He could run away with Lennie, not do anything and let the others kill Lennie, or kill Lennie himself. He chose to kill his best-friend, Lennie, himself and he made the right decision. If George had told Lennie that they were going to run away when they met down in the brush, they might've had a small chance of survival. But this chance was made almost non-existent by the fact that they were being chased by dogs and a bunch of angry men with shot guns. They never would've made it. What most likely would've happened would be that both Lennie and George would've gotten shot because it would've looked like they were running because they both helped to kill Curley's wife. There were no ties between Curley and anyone on the ranch, especially these two, so nothing would've stopped him from putting a bullet in both of their heads. George obviously didn't want to die, so he couldn't choose to run. He just would've wound up dead too. George also could've stayed at the ranch with Candy and done nothing, or just followed the rest of the guys looking for Lennie. He knew what was going to happen, and he knew it from the moment he saw Curley's wife's body lying dead in the barn. It was clear to him that there was no way Lennie could make it out of this one alive. But George also knew that he couldn't live with himself if he let the man he was responsible for be killed by Curley out of revenge. Lennie didn't know what he was doing and it wasn't fair that he should be killed out of hate. George had learned a lot from Candy when he said, "I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog." Candy had taught him that if Lennie's death was inevitable, it might as well be done by someone who knows the him and cares about him. Lennie had to be killed out of love. That revelation was the driving force that led George to kill his best friend in the world. This was probably the hardest decision George ever had to make, and after he made it, he had even a harder time carrying it out. "And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie's head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger.......George shivered and looked at the gun, and then he threw it from him, back up on the bank, near the pile of old ashes." Even though this was a difficult, heart-wrenching thing for him to do, he knew he had done nothing wrong. It was the only way the 'problem' that Lennie had with hurting people could be resolved with no loose ends and no guilty consciences. George may have been sad about it, but he had done the right thing. To many people, the ending of this book may seem sad and kinda screwed up, and they wish the book had a 'happy' ending. But Lennie ending up dead was the only way that the book could end believably and happily. It was a much "happier" ending then George and Lennie ending up in their little ranch, because that wouldn't have been believable. Lennie had always gotten himself into trouble before and that wouldn't have changed just because they owned their own house. He would've screwed it up somehow. George killing Lennie may have been sad, but it was also believable and right. If you had to make a decision, would you rather have a 'happy' ending, or one you could really understand that would keep you thinking? In "Of Mice And Men", by John Steinbeck,the social power group is the white, male workers on the farm. They are younger men, still useful, sort of intelligent, and average-sized. They exclude people who do not fit their norm, such as Curley for being short, Lennie for being retarded, Candy for being old, Crooks for being black, and Curley's wife for being a woman. Between themselves,