11-28-12
Mrs.McSweeney
Adv.Eng.10
Of Mice and Men
What could've been Lennie sits by the deep pool near the river, waiting for George. He’s proud of himself for remembering this is the spot where he’s to wait. George is really the only thing on his mind right now. After getting harassed by a hallucination of his Aunt Clara and a rabbit, Lennie is thrilled to see George and begs him to give him hell, so that things can get back to normal. George is strangely not effusive even when Lennie tells him that he has done yet another bad thing. When George refuses to give him hell, Lennie asks George to tell him the dream-farm story again, and about how the two of them are different than other guys. George takes out Carlson’s Luger and unsnaps the safety. As George tells the story, Lennie adds his usual eager interruptions and additions about tending rabbits and living off the fat of the land. George tells Lennie to look across the river while he narrates. Lennie then tells George he’d worried that George was angry at him. After hearing George promise he’s not mad, and he’s never been mad, Lennie goes back to the dream farm. As George is readying his courage, Lennie says, “Le’s do it now. Le’s get that place now.”(106). George agrees they’ve got to do it now, and as Lennie continues to look over the bank, envisioning the farm, George puts a gun to the back of Lennie’s head and pulls the trigger. Lennie lies still in the sand, without quivering, dead. The other men hear the shot and come running. They think that Lennie had Carlson’s gun and that George wrestled it away from him. George doesn’t correct them. Slim sees the situation for what it is. He comes over to George quietly and sits close to him, saying simply, “Never you mind…A guy got to sometimes.”(107). As the other men probe George for the nasty details, Slim