Important Choice in of Mice and Men

Choices are made by everyone at some point in life. Choices can be complicated or as simple as yes or no. Decisions can be difficult or easy to make. Some choices are impulsive while some require a lot of premeditation to make. In the novella, Of Mice and Men, written by George Steinbeck, George chose to kill his best friend Lennie. Lennie and George were friends for a long time. They both worked at a farm together. Lennie was retarded and George took care of him and watched over him. Throughout the book Lennie displays blind loyalty to George and their hope of a better life. George is a very dynamic character through the book while Lennie is constant displaying incredible amounts of physical strength and being dim witted. Killing Lennie was no easy task for George. This important choice was a choice that affected others, affected George, and had to be motivated to be made. George was motivated to kill his friend, Lennie. Lennie had always loved to pet soft things. He would often kill mice just by petting them. Lennie had also killed a puppy on accident. These incidents occurred out of his innocence. He was unaware of his own strength and killed animals because of it. Lennie killed Curley’s wife in an effort to simply pet her soft hair. A mob of people from the farm chased Lennie and George from the farm in an effort to kill Lennie. Curley said he wanted to kill Lennie in the most painful way possible. George and Lennie effectively escaped their pursuit for a brief minute. In this moment George tried to calm Lennie down by reminding him of their shared dream of a better life. This involved them owning their own farm and tending rabbits for Lennie to pet. This undoubtedly brought Lennie to a calm place. In that moment when people began to close in, George killed Lennie by shooting him in the back of the head. This act was influenced by the impending doom Lennie had coming. The other men from the farm that had chased Lennie would have killed him much less