Was George Justified In Of Mice And Men

George had a difficult situation he had to decide, and he had to do it fast. Would he rather take Lennie's life himself? Or would he rather the other guys do it? This is a tough decision that was made by George Milton in the last chapter of the John Steinbeck's novella, Of Mice and Men. George knew he had to take Lennie's life himself or he would have a painful death, that was not something he wanted for Lennie. George taking Lennie's life was him stepping in and being the caretaker that he has to be for Lennie and protecting him from the other guys. Even though some people may say it’s wrong that George shot Lennie, he had to do it. George would have hated himself for letting them do it and Lennie suffering.

One reason that George was justified for killing Lennie is because Lennie would have gotten himself into even more trouble and would have gotten himself killed somewhere else, and that is even if he made it out of the situation he was already in, which he would not have. Curley was furious, he was not going to let Lennie get away by any means. As a little man, Curley had a lot of hatred for Lennie, not for killing his wife, but because Lennie was a big guy and Curley had “Short Man's Syndrome”. ”I'm gonna get him. I'm going for my shotgun. I’ll kill him myself. I'll shoot ‘im in the guts” (steinbeck 96). To add more fuel to Curley's fire for Lennie, Lennie broke Curley's hand in a …show more content…
“Jus’ keep me shovin’ all over the country all the time. An’ that ain’t the worst. You get in trouble. You do bad things and I got to get you out” (Steinbeck 11). George is sick of treating Lennie like he is a little kid and him getting into trouble. It has caused them to run away from towns, hide out, and not be able to keep a steady job for a