John Steinbeck's The Hard Choices Of A Friendship

Improved Essays
The Hard Choices of a Friendship To protect the ones they love they will have to make difficult decisions that are painful but necessary.Steinbeck's description of the bond between george and lennie helps the reader understand George's decision in the end.
The bond of George and Lennie is a very rare and amazing thing but not everything is always good as in the end their friendship takes a turn for the worst. George also views Lennie as a brother or his partner in crime. George is very protective of Lennie and hopes that someday they can have a ranch of their own where Lennie can tend rabbits and stay out of trouble.George and Lennie were born in the same town and after Lennie's Aunt Clara died, Lennie just started to accompany him "out

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Lennie tells George that he will go on up into the mountains and live on his own, but then George realises that he couldn’t let Lennie do that. George tells Lennie to come back here if he gets in any trouble and when Lennie promises George that he “won’t say a word”(P33), George replies saying; “Good Boy!”(P33). Steinbeck includes this answer for George as that is what a parent is likely to say to their child. Steinbeck presents the friendship as the other alternative is to become one of “the loneliest guys in the…

    • 1924 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    George and Lennie’s Relationship George and Lennie shared a fairly strong friendship, but the relationship that they had was not one that friends should have. Because of Lennie’s disability, George could not always treat him as a friend, but sometimes more as a child. The first moment in the book that we can start to see that George feels responsible for Lennie was after they had run away from Weed, and were hiding in the woods. This was when George was starting to get very angry and scream at Lennie, he said “An’ what I got, I got you!” (11) This quote shows that George feels as if his life could be so much better and easier without Lennie, but he has to keep Lennie with him, because he feels responsible for him.…

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Afterwards, he begins to cry, “I didn’t wanta hurt him” (64). Also, multiple times throughout the book, Lennie asks George to tell him their dream for a better life, which includes buying their own land and raising animals. Lennie is obsessed with the prospect of caring for his own rabbits, and this plays into many of his actions. He wants something he can cherish and cuddle whenever he wants. Lennie, despite any of his weaknesses, is a very loving character.…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck it proves that friends will really do anything to protect each other. Throughout the story the two main characters Lennie and George face a agglomeration of confrontations and prove that they will do whatever they can do to protect each other. One example of this is “I’ll give him the work tickets, but you ain’t gonna say a word. You jus’ stand there and don’t say nothing”(Steinbeck 6).…

    • 402 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    George has been taking care of Lennie for quite a long time, ever since Aunt Clara asked George too. Lennie has always been unintelligent and unaware of his surroundings. However, what Lennie had done took it too an extreme level. Lennie had killed the wife of Curley. George and the guys at the ranch and had found out, and Curley was furious, he wanted revenge.…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    George and Lennie faced more moral dilemmas because George is constantly torn between helping and hurting his friend. Lennie held back by his mental handicap throughout the story and the reader can see that George wants to help him but it's hard when something bad is constantly happening. The boys don’t like Lennie because he’s too strong and crushes one of the boy’s hand (Steinbeck 63), and messes things up while he is trying to be friends with everyone. George is then finally faced with the decision whether to end his “best friend’s” life or lie about what happen and run away again.…

    • 1790 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    True friends should stick together no matter the circumstances. This especially applies to situations where are each other’s only family. If two friends have a relationship that is this immensely close, they should never betray one another. This means that no companion should ever cut the other’sskfjdlsk life short. Although George taking Lennie’s life away with a nonviolent method was for sure better than if it was taken cruelly and painfully by another man in John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” the novel could have not resulted in a death that would haunt Lennie’s friend/killer forever.…

    • 727 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Best Friends Until the End Imagine having to kill your best friend. In Of Mice and Men, George made a hard decision which was if he should kill his best friend, Lennie. George killing Lennie was justified because had to think about Lennie’s life ahead if he didn 't make this choice. George making this choice was right because Lennie had unknowingly brought a threat among people, Lennie had died much quicker and painless, and Lennie was basically George’s responsibility.…

    • 1150 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In addition, George gets angry when Lennie kills small animals and threatens Lennie’s dream of tending to rabbits in the future. This leads to Lennie’s panic when Curley’s Wife starts to scream. From him panicking…

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    An outcast is a person who has been rejected by society or a social group. In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck every character is portrayed as an outcast. The story is based in a small town during the 1930’s on a ranch. Most of the workers are men who travel around individually trying to find work for a short amount of time. All are considered outcasts especially those with a physical or mental disability.…

    • 597 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    They are men who only have each other. Neither of their families are living or known to be alive. Early in the book, Lennie talked about leaving George and George replied, “Your Aunt Clara wouldn’t like you running off by yourself, even if she is dead” (Steinbeck 7). George enjoys the company of Lennie and he also realizes that Lennie can’t survive without him. With Lennie styled as a pet in the book, an assumption can be made that Lennie needs George and is helpless on his own.…

    • 1165 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    George could have been well off without Lennie, but still continues to care and support him. They have one another to talk to, be with, and look after.      ‘With us it ain’t like that. We got a future.…

    • 921 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He paints a picture into Lennie’s mind that without him, he would suffer loneliness just as the other ranch hands feel. The moment Lennie first noticed that he was being a pest to George he went on and said, "If you don ' want me I can go off in the hills an ' find a cave. I can go away any time" (Steinbeck 12). It begins to register to Lennie that he doesn’t ever want George to abandon him. Lennie offers to run away before he would have to deal with George walking out on him.…

    • 1148 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    George didn’t want to disappoint Lennie when they don’t get the rabbit farm that he wanted so badly and ended up killing someone for…

    • 1386 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Most people would do anything for their friend if they are loyal, and some might even die for their friend. In Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, Lennie and George's friendship is one of the main themes in the story. George makes sure Lennie has a good life and helps him when he gets in trouble and Lennie defends George when he thinks he's in danger. Although there are many hardships throughout the story, Lennie and George's friendship continues and they stay loyal to each…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays