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For all your Of Mice and Men needs!
[ I like it when Geogre shoots Lennie. ]
Lonliness: Soledad, George plays Solitaire.
Animal Imagery: Start of book, where Lennie is drinking from the water on his hands and knees and has big "paws", like a bear.
Candy's dog getting shot and him saying that he should've shot the dog himself is very important to the end of the book.

Do you think George should have shot Lennie?

Hurray for Euthanasia. My first reason for George shooting Lennie was that is was controversial, which makes it interesting. My second is that with Lennie's impairment and the lack of medical treatments at that time, it was the only humane thing to do in my opinion.(Except for letting him live but he just does so many bad things by accident.)

Yes, I agree. However innocent Lennie was, he was becoming a liability to George and it wasn't fair on him. George just wanted a normal life and Lennie couldn't let him have that. Also, George had to shoot him, otherwise Curley and the others would have got to him and tortured him. From a certain point of view, it was best for everyone, even Lennie, the George shot him, because Lennie didn't feel any pain and George could live his life as it should have been.

hey niknnik,
I enjoyed of mice and men, (well i had to, we were studying it for GCSE) but a little thing I think needs clearing up. George shot Lennie because otherwise Curley and co would have lynched Lennie, (killed him) not tortured him, and as you've already said, where candy moans about how he should have shot his own dog, George acts upon that and shoots Lennie because it's the most humane thing to do and he is closest to Lennie. The sentence "George just wanted a normal life" is inaccurate, as he actually wanted to fulfill his American dream, and that could only have been done with Lennie, because they traveled as a two, not lonesome as the workers in the depression worked. George could not have lived his life as it should of been because he killed Lennie. The depression stopped anyone achieving their life's aims but because there were two of them, they were close to it.
Sorry to rain on your parade but I'm passionate about this book and I don't believe you understand it fully.

Loathed this book. It was so boring for so long and then had the worst ending there was!

George did the right thing. He absolutely had to do it. Lennie was a complete liability and although he didn't mean to be, he was also very dangerous as he just didn't know his own strength.
George had been a compassionate and loyal individual there for Lennie through thick and thin but when he killed Curley's wife, he must have realised he just couldn't do it anymore. Lennie would have been killed by Curley anyway, George ultimately did the kindest thing he could do for Lennie and in doing so, he set himself free.
In shooting Lennie, George not only spared Lennie a whole world of pain but it also meant that George now stood a chance for living out his dream. Lennie getting them fired all the time and constantly having to go on the run and look for new jobs was holding George back. Having said that, if he continued to blow his wages on drinking and hookers, he wouldn't get there anyway but the point remains valid.

I think George had no other choice but to shoot Lennie. I still hate the ending, but it's one of those endings where, despite the fact that it was terrible, if it had ended differently, it wouldn't have been half as good. I love this book. This book is next to East of Eden as one of my favorite books of all time. Steinbeck is amazing. (Except for The Pearl)

I agree with both of you, but I still think it's stressed in the book that George can only live out his life BECAUSE of lennie. although he's always complaining, he keeps telling Lennie about "living off the fatta the lan" which is what he wants to do, which he can only achieve with Lennie's help. During the depression, people wondered around, working then moving on, always alone. The example of Whit when he talks about the guy who moved on shows this. In the book, George actually says something along the lines of we're different, coz there's two of us therefore we can do it. When he has to shoot Lennie, he's shooting goodbye his dreams as well.

Aye. You're right. Only Steinbeck could make that kind of thing so sad. It's amazing that despite the book's brevity (only about 110 pages) Steinbeck can make the reader feel like he knows George and Lennie. Have you ever read East of Eden, Jammy? If you haven't, do it. It's wicked long, but it's so good that when you finally finish it, it's a sad occasion.

east of eden <3

but as long as i get to tend the rabbits?!
-x

I had to read that book for my American Lit. class junior year in high school. My teacher was providing horrible voice overs. The book is okay, but I wouldn't read for enjoyment.

never read east of eden, but I might get it out the library! I need to expand to more types of literature rather than the modern day books i read

Yeah, but George could just have easily tried to run off with Lennie, or hide him. He could also have defended him, despite how slim those chances were anyway (And as you know from studying this at GCSE, jammy, all migrant workers of the time had slim chances at anything). But yeah, he didn't really have a choice.
But I disagree with him not being able to have a normal life without Lennie, because a normal life for migrant workers of the time would be the sort of life Slim and the other lived. With Lennie, George could neveer find love, he couldn't have as much fun, and he had to keep on leaving places before he could get his desired pay. Despite the fact that George could only get the little house if he had Lennie with him, Lennie was a risk to travel with and he had just as much chance of getting his own place with Lennie than without, I think.

Hated the book purely for we had study it for 6 months for GCSEs, but asides from that, It is a interesting insight into the attitudes during the great despression. I have a personal interest in the 20s and around that era so it was insightful, if I didn't have to read it for schools sake, I would probably get round to it eventually. I like the constant foreshadowing of Candy's dog and Lennie, it makes you think.

It was pretty depressing that fact they were so close to achieving their dream and they were cut down in their prime. I think him shooting Lenny was the point of the book, 'the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray'.

Also, I hate Curley... just saying :]

I didn't like the book. I'm not a big fan of Steinbeck. Or to be precise, I'm not a big fan of what the state chooses for us that happens to be from Steinbeck. We read Of Mice and Men in freshmen year, and it was to be honest, boring for me. I preferred The Grapes of Wrath (actually not even the actual story, but the non diegetic chapters), another required read.

As everyone has previously stated (making my comment redundant, but I'll say it anyway), George did what he had to do. Lennie was a burden. Although innocent, he had too many "accidents" and if George hadn't done it, Curley would have.

Great book, loved it for the whole half-year we studied it in english. Movie ending was spoiled a little because when George shot Lennie half of the class shouted "HEADSHOT!" "Dominated!"

Teacher got pissed off a bit.

Great book, loved it for the whole half-year we studied it in english. Movie ending was spoiled a little because when George shot Lennie half of the class shouted "HEADSHOT!" "Dominated!"

Teacher got pissed off a bit.

This book was amazing. I'm not sorry that I was forced to read this in high school at all. Though, I did feel a little silly being the only one who teared up when Lennie met his gruesome end. I wish it would have been an individual reading assignment instead of an entire class reading project, so I could have cried alone happily. lol

:smiley2: lol :smiley2:

I did kinda enjoy the book for alot of reasons it did explore alot of moral issues that are still relevant in modern society.
No offence to John Steinbeck but if he were to read how we analyse his book and all the notes we make on what he think he is doing...
Don't you think he would go "Wow... I really meant that?"

They all would.

I quite enjoyed the book when I studied it earlier this year for my GCSE. The only issue I had reading it was that for months before I'd been gorging myself on slash fanfiction, so I kept finding the nonexistent slash subtext. I found it quite fun later analysing all the different characters, since it made me feel like I understood them more.

I just get a little annoyed whenever we have to find different meanings behind parts of a story, because I just think to myself:

"This book was most likely written for entertainment. Not so a class of GCSE students could nitpick every single sentence."