Preview

The Role Of Euthanasia In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
607 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Role Of Euthanasia In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men
In the story Of Mice and Men George and Lennie were a pair of men who traveled together. However trouble always tends to find poor Lennie. He has a tendency to kill things he love and this time it so happened to be a woman with long soft hair. Now he has a lynch party after him. This is now where euthanasia plays apart in this story. If you do not know what euthanasia is, it is the practice of intentionally ending ones life in order to relieve pain or suffering. I think that that is exactly what George did to Lennie. He did not want Lennie in pain or getting in trouble anymore and did not want the lynch party to make him suffer. So George distracted Lennie by telling him the story about how they were going to have the farm and the little …show more content…
Plus, George couldn't let them hurt his friend. He knew Lennie didn't mean to do the things he did and that Lennie had an illness. He couldn't help the things he did neither did he try to do them on purpose. But they however don't know Lennie like he did and didn't share the bond George and Lennie did. So, they didn't care how bad they would hurt him. They just wanted him to die because of him causing death upon a woman. George knew they wanted Lennie to suffer and George knew he couldn't live with that happening. So he took it upon him self and did his friend a favor. This killing happened because of ones mental illness and the euthanasia one had for another. On the other hand George could have just fled with Lennie instead of killing him but, it got to be to much for him so he ended it. In a closing remark I think that Euthanasia can be a good thing and a bad. Like with the speaker that came Sean Carter he wanted to kill his self. If his mother would have participated in Euthanasia would that have been right? No but then again yes. The reason I say no is because he’s a human being just like me and you, just because he has a mental illness doesn't mean anything at all. Everybody has hope. Then again at the same time if he's suffering so bad to where he doesn't want to be here then he does have a

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Why George Should Not Have Killed Lennie At the last time I read book named “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck.. This book was interesting! I like it, we might understand this book in two ways, that we agree what George did and that we can not understand what George did. I know that a lot of people say that George should have killed Lennie, but I think that George should have not killed Lennie. He should not killed Lennie because it is not humanitarian, everyone has a right to life.…

    • 429 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout chapter one George and Lennie discuss the incident that happened in weed, and we begin to see George lose control when he says to Lennie, “Oh, so ya forgot that too, did ya? Well, I ain’t gonna remind ya, fear ya do it again” (Steinbeck 7). When George says this it shows how much he’s concerned with something like it, or something worse happening again. By the end of the book Lennie has killed multiple mice, a puppy, and a woman, George knows Lennie will never overcome his disability which will result in him killing again. Therefore, George had to end Lennie’s life to protect himself, and other people from his destructive…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    How Did George Kill Lennie

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Some people might think that George is not a true friend to Lennie. They might think this because George kills Lennie. George could have run away with Lennie instead of killing him, or he could have let Lennie run away on his own. He killed Lennie because it was the best option he had. The mob could have found Lennie, and Lennie would just mess up again. Also he killed him peacefully, which is better than any other form of death and a sign of compassion. If George didn’t kill Lennie Curley’s mob would have killed him in a more painful way, which George would not…

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    John Steinbeck wrote a book called “Of Mice and Men.” Of Mice and Men is an engaging novel about two migrant workers, Lennie and George, who are trying to obtain their dreams of having their own home together. George is small and quick and is the alpha. The other is Lennie, who is big and strong, but has a mental disability, making him slow and in constant need of help and guidance. Throughout the book, trouble becomes increasingly worse, and George ends up having to kill Lennie. Most people believe that is was George’s responsibility to look after Lennie, making his killing unjustified. However, George was justified in killing Lennie because Lennie had previously hurt people, Lennie is not going to get a trial, and George cannot always be there for Lennie.…

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The story takes place during the 1930s at a small ranch south of Soledad, California. The country was struggling through the Great Depression and focused on isolationism, preferring to settle troubles at home rather than the rising crisis in Europe. Though, the Eugenics Movement, a movement based on the idea of improving the human race through selective breeding – largely seen in Nazi Germany, was also beginning to spread in the United States. Stemming from the Eugenics Movement, public talk of euthanasia also dramatically increased. Due to the subtle ideologies of the Eugenics Movement and the ending reference of euthanasia, modern interpretations of the book will greatly differ from thoughts from the books original release. because of the…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    George And Lennie

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages

    George was only meaning to end Lennie’s suffering of his mental condition, and his suffering that was to come from the other men. Similar to George and Lennie’s situation, a woman admitted to a mercy killing of her son. According to the New York Post, “The weepy mother confessed to taking Jude Mirra’s life in February 2010 at the swank Peninsula Hotel but insists that it was a ‘mercy killing’ to spare him from abuse at the hands of almost half a dozen people” (Rosenburg). This mother claims to have killed her son to “spare him from abuse”, which was actually what George was doing for Lennie as well. If he had left him alive, he would most likely be put in some mental institution or worse. Another related situation was when a man shot his wife for the sole purpose of putting her out of her sickness. The New York Times states, “But friends…

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    At the age of 16, a man named Corey Williams was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering a pizza delivery man. However, the judge reduced the sentence considering the fact that Williams was intellectually disabled. Throughout his life, Cory “lacked ‘the ability to engage in the world around him (even in a proceeding where the death penalty (for him) is being addressed.” After Corey Williams was sentenced to death, defense attorneys found out through interviews that there were actually three other men involved in the murder. Since Williams was disabled, they thought it would be easy to blame it on him. In John Steinbeckś novella Of Mice and Men set in the 1930ś in Salinas Valley, California we meet the static character Lennie Smalls, and his best friend George. Although the author does not point out or say that Lennie has a disability, it is implied throughout the novella that he does have one. Back in the 1930ś, no one knew how to handle Lennieś condition because it was new to them; When something is new to someone, typically they will get scared and handle the situation incorrectly.…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Death is a horrendous thing that can cause an irreplaceable hole in somebody’s life. Death can also represent chaos and the pain of another character in the story. In Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck, the deaths of Johnny, Dally, and Bob created an intriguing plot and unveiled the hidden feelings and personalities of characters who react to the deaths, like Dally and Randy. The major deaths in The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, which are the deaths of Candy’s Dog, Curley’s Wife, and Lennie, displayed the personalities of the characters who killed them and developed the story in the book. The theme of death reveals hidden elements of characters who strongly felt a certain way about the character. Even though death is the end of a character, it…

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    At first glance George and Lennie had a great relationship but as the story progresses, George discovers he must move on to a better life. “ ‘God a’mighty, if I [George] was alone I could live so easy. I could get a job an’ work, an’ no trouble. No mess at all, and when the end of the month come I could take my fifty bucks and go into town and get whatever I want…’ “(11). At the beginning of the story George knew what Lennie had done in their previous town Weed, but he didn’t notice all the events leading up to another mistake that was even worst than the last. Due to the fact that Lennie doesn’t know wrong from right George had to keep fixing his mistakes, which was hurting George and his dreams. It wasn’t until after Lennie killed Curley’s Wife that George realized his dreams were not going anywhere while Lennie was still around. So he knew that it was in the best interest for both of them if they went their separate ways. Although George didn’t have to kill Lennie in order for him to succeed, George felt like that was the only way he could have peace with himself and the death of Lennie. In the end George knew that Lennie needed him in order to succeed in life but Lennie was holding him back so George got…

    • 611 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    When one of the protagonists, Lennie breaks Curley’s wife’s “neck”, he in turn kills his dream of a better life with George, his only hope in the world. Crooks foreshadows that their dream will not come true, saying that he has “seen hundreds of men come by on the road, an’ that same damn thing on their heads” … “ever’body wants a little piece of lan”, but none of them get it. Lennie’s “dead puppy” also foreshadows Lennie killing Curley’s wife, and in turn George and his dream. George and Lennie want to “live off the fatta the lan”, but in the world that Steinbeck has created, all hope of a better life is killed, like the dead mice in Lennie’s paws.…

    • 122 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    mice of men essay

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Many things help to justify what George did to Lennie. For example on page 95 after George finds the body of the woman Lennie killed he tells Candy, “We gotta tell the guys. They gotta bring him in, I guess.” This shows that George knows Lennie is a danger to society and what he did was unacceptable. George hesitates in turning Lennie in because he loves him however he knows turning Lennie is the right thing to do. In addition, on page 104 right before George executes Lennie, he tells Lennie his favorite stories about how they would live happily together. This gives Lennie happy thoughts right before he dies. Curly and the others would have murdered Lennie anyways, but they would have agonized him and made his death miserable. George allowed Lennie to die peacefully and he made him happy.…

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    If a loved one is on life support, should you pull the plug? People have their own fate and that is what is set. In Of Mice and Men, author John Steinbeck depicts the fate of Lennie. But if they can’t control what is going to happen to them than a loved one takes the responsibility to choose whether they want to stop the treatment or keep them on the treatment and making them suffer . This is more of torture then caring for them and helping them. Mercy Killing is a justifiable solution, because it ends someone’s life that is either on the line or who’s ill and there is no way the will make it, meaning they don’t have to suffer.…

    • 1258 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mercy Killing: A quiet, painless death. A mercy killing is how Lennie died in John…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    he did this out out of love, he wanted lennie too die happily In of mice and men, we must register the number of cycles that can be perceived. The reader may ask himself, why did George kill Lennie now and not run away like they did in Weed?…

    • 266 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Imagine you or a loved one was drafted into a war, and the enemy would only stop when the enemy has taken their last breath or until they are down to one of their last people and they ultimately they surrendered. To not only keep your life protected but the whole country secure. You would have to kill an enemy that would even take a second to think about killing you, and in that second if you could kill them or be overpowered and at best, enslaved, but probably killed. Therefore, the death penalty, military ethics, or even when George kills Lennie in Of Mice and Men are valid reasons to kill.…

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays