True Friendship In Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Register to read the introduction… George has parent like characteristics, he is serious and caring towards Lennie. Section one of the novel establishes so much about their friendship. We see Lennie, who had been watching, “imitated George exactly.”(P20) Steinbeck shows us, further how Lennie looks up to George as a role model. The dialogue which follows is important as we can hear their voices; we can hear George’s parental tone and Lennie’s childish tone. We see George referring to Lennie as a “crazy bastard” to Lennie’s face, but as a “poor bastard” to himself. This shows us that George feels pity for him deep down inside. Steinbeck uses a mouse to show us childish Lennie. George says for Lennie to give him the mouse, but Steinbeck uses one of the best metaphors of what a child would do. Lennie made “an elaborate pantomime of innocence.”(P26) This is just like what a child would do. The ‘child’ tries to play innocent and pretends he doesn’t have it, reluctant to give it away, but the ‘parent’ knows that he really does and holds out his hand “outstretched imperiously.”(P26) George sees Lennie as a burden. George gives Lennie a speech, “George exploded”(P28). He tells Lennie how he “could live so easy…No trouble”(P28-29). However, George looked ashamedly afterwards. 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 …show more content…
Steinbeck presents Candy as an old man who has no one to talk to or keep him company, besides the dog. To him, the dog was more than an animal that struggled; it was a companion to share life with. When Carlson is talking to Candy he offers to kill his dog, Candy refused to answer. Candy stuck, and finally gave in to Carlson’s requests. He had the dog his whole life and now it was gone. Steinbeck uses this event to foreshadow what we will see later on in the novel – the theme of mercy killing. Candy would be abandoned without a friend. Out of the loneliness he jumps into Lennie and George’s dream, giving practically everything he had to them, showing the importance of friendship and sharing your life with a friend. “Tell you what… S’pose I went in with you guys. Tha’s three hundred an’ fifty bucks I’d put in. I ain’t much good, but I could cook and tend the chickens and hoe the garden some. How’d that be? I’d make a will an’ leave my share to you guys in case I kick off, ‘cause I ain’t got no relatives nor nothing. ” (P87) Stiembeck writes that the three men “looked at one another amazed” realising that they really could live their dream, that it was coming