Consequences Of Mercy Killing In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

“I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you.” Those words are exchanged between two best friends, Lennie and George, in John Steinbeck’s book, Of Mice and Men. This book is about a unique pair of men, George and Lennie. George is small and has defined features and Lennie is a big, mentally disabled man. The two travel together and have a father son type of relationship. They get a job at a farm bucking barley, and George always looks after Lennie trying to make sure he doesn’t mess anything up. In the end, Lennie accidentally kills the boss’ son’s wife, and gets killed by his best friend, George, to save him from the suffering he would have gone through otherwise. This is called mercy killing. Mercy killing is killing someone out of compassion, not hatred. George should have killed Lennie because if he had not Lennie would have an even tougher time ahead of him. The novel shows that mercy killing is good and should be allowed because if mercy killing had not been the result of the situation, the consequences for Lennie would have been much worse. George did the right thing
Mercy killing benefits the person being killed because it saves them from a future tougher experience. Steinbeck shows this in several ways in the story. One is when Carlson kills Candy’s dog. Carlson shows that he wanted to kill the dog because he wanted to put him out of his pain by saying, “’If you want me to, I’ll put the old devil out of his misery right now and get it over with. Ain’t nothing left for him. Can’t eat, can’t see, can’t even walk without hurtin,’” (47). The dog was in pain and suffering. Everything the dog did was difficult and hurt him. It would have been wrong to have the dog keep living in so much pain. Death is always sad no matter what, but in a situation of mercy killing, it is a better option than a painful, suffering