Role Of Social Responsibility In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

vvThe book Of Mice & Men written by John Steinbeck was published a couple of years after the end of The Great Depression. During The Great Depression Era social responsibility was important because people were losing their jobs, houses, and healthcare. Social responsibility means helping individuals and obligation to act for the benefit of society at large. In the book there are two main characters named George and Lennie. George knew Lennie through Lennie’s Aunt Clara and when she past away he promised to take care of and look after Lennie. At the end of the book, George kills Lennie to protect him from a crime he committed. George is acting socially responsible because he knows that Lennie is capable of doing more wrongs and harming others. …show more content…
Lennie is not the brightest guy and he’s sort of slow; basically he’s a child in a man’s body. George has to constantly instruct Lennie on basic behavior. For example, Lennie wasn’t suppose to keep mice any longer because he would pet them too hard and he would kill them. When George found out that Lennie had another dead mouse in his pocket he grabbed it and threw it across the pool into the brush. George said, “What you want of a dead mouse, anyways?” “I could pet it with my thumb while we walked along,” said Lennie (4). When George leaves Lennie alone he always gets into some type of trouble. Other examples of George being socially responsible include, the what took place in Weed with the girl in the red dress and the incident with Curley’s