Of Mice And Men Lennie's Decision Analysis

In John Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie are very good friends, but George has to make an extremely difficult decision when Lennie gets himself into trouble. Lennie unintentionally causes the death of Curley’s wife, which clearly makes Curley upset. Curley plans to make Lennie suffer, but George finds him before Curley does. George chooses to euthanize Lennie to prevent him from being hurt, or hurting anyone else. George did this in order to keep him from being harmed by the others at the ranch, but he probably is thinking about Lennie’s future too. Although George was looking out for Lennie, he did not have the authority to take his life. George did not make the right choice killing his friend because Lennie was a criminal, they had other options, and it was not George’s place to end Lennie’s life.
George did not make the correct decision, in ending Lennie’s life. What George did was better for Lennie, but Lennie was a murderer, and was technically supposed to go to jail. “Candy asked, “What we gonna do now, George? What we gonna do now?” George was a long time in answering. “Guess… we gotta tell the… guys. I guess we gotta get ‘im an’ lock ‘im up. We can’t let ‘im get away.’” (94). Lennie didn’t know what he was …show more content…
If George knew that Lennie was not responsible, and he still didn’t supervise him, then it is partially George’s fault that Curley’s wife died. “Candy said, “What done it?” George looked coldly at him. “Ain’t you got any idear?” he asked. And Candy was silent. “I should of knew,” George said hopelessly. “I guess maybe way back in my head I did.” (94). If George had provided more supervision of Lennie, the whole situation could have been avoided. George had no right to end Lennie’s life, because he was also guilty. George was tasked with looking after Lennie and he had failed. Need another quote and