Indian education activist Sadhu Vaswani once stated, “If my love is without sacrifice, it is selfish. Such a love is barter, for there is exchange of love and devotion in return for something. It is conditional love.” Love and sacrifice can be seen as the most challenging traits to display, especially when showing shared humanity, or displaying kindness, sympathy and mercy towards others. In John Steinbeck's novella, Of Mice and Men, he is able to demonstrate the human races’ capacity to share their humanity through love and sacrifice. Love can be a powerful emotion that can also be utilized to demonstrate shared humanity. In the novella, the two main characters, George and Lennie display a brotherly love for one another and use this relationship
…show more content…
Later on in the story, Lennie accidentally kills the wife of Curley, who is also their employer's son. When everyone discovers that his wife was murdered at Lennie’s hands, Curley intends to kill Lennie. Some characters, including George know that Lennie will suffer at the hands of Curley and will die in a painful and torturing way. George realizes that the only way to stop this event from occurring is to kill Lennie himself. George eventually finds Lennie, and he proceeds to place the fondest thought of their entire lives together into Lennie’s mind. They talk of a “place of their own”, or a place where they can live on their own and they can be free of anyone telling them what to do. The book states, “ Lennie begged, ‘Le’s do it now. Le’s get that place now.’ ‘Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta.’ And George raised the gun and steadied it… He pulled the trigger.” (Steinbeck 106) From this, we are able to see that George sacrificed his only friend in the entire world, in order for that friend to not suffer at the hands of other, cruel people. George ultimately held the decision on what would occur, and he chose the best option. He chose made a decision that would allow for the least amount of people to get hurt, yet let himself get hurt in the process. By doing so, George demonstrates an act of shared humanity, because although he had to give up a companion, he ultimately knew he
Later on in the story, Lennie accidentally kills the wife of Curley, who is also their employer's son. When everyone discovers that his wife was murdered at Lennie’s hands, Curley intends to kill Lennie. Some characters, including George know that Lennie will suffer at the hands of Curley and will die in a painful and torturing way. George realizes that the only way to stop this event from occurring is to kill Lennie himself. George eventually finds Lennie, and he proceeds to place the fondest thought of their entire lives together into Lennie’s mind. They talk of a “place of their own”, or a place where they can live on their own and they can be free of anyone telling them what to do. The book states, “ Lennie begged, ‘Le’s do it now. Le’s get that place now.’ ‘Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta.’ And George raised the gun and steadied it… He pulled the trigger.” (Steinbeck 106) From this, we are able to see that George sacrificed his only friend in the entire world, in order for that friend to not suffer at the hands of other, cruel people. George ultimately held the decision on what would occur, and he chose the best option. He chose made a decision that would allow for the least amount of people to get hurt, yet let himself get hurt in the process. By doing so, George demonstrates an act of shared humanity, because although he had to give up a companion, he ultimately knew he