A hero is someone who does the right thing despite their fears!. In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, George and Lennie travel together after George and Lennie had gotten expelled from weeds!. George looked out for Lennie and Lennie always got in trouble!. They found another place to work!. Carlson shot Candy's dog!. Lennie strangled Curley's wife!. George went to go find Lennie and he shot him!. George is a hero for shooting Lennie!. George shot Lennie because he cared about Lennie, he needed to think of himself, and he knew that it had to be done!.
George is a hero for shooting Lennie, because even though Lennie was his only companion and friend, and he loved him as much as be was able and knew how, he killed him!. Despite his own fears of being alone, he did what he considered to be the right thing, for Lennie and himself!. George knew that by killing Lennie he would be killing a piece of himself!. That he would forever be alone by Lennie's death!. Killing Lennie was his responsibility!. He needed to stop making excuses!. As French says, “Underneath the surface most men are not only dreamers, but unsuccessful dreamers; The real heroes are not the dreamers but the doers, (Warren, French!. 78)!. George needed to stop fantasizing about “the dream” and put an effort into doing it!. He needed to be able to stop using Lennie as an excuse for why he had not been able to achieve the dream, but instead attribute his failure to himself!.
Lennie was a part of George!. He was the childish aspect of George himself!. For George to ever be able to come to consciousness, he would need to separate himself from the child within!. He needed to rely on himself and not have anyone else to blame but himself when the dream he and Lennie always envisioned didn't pull through!. Ann M!. Brunjes writes, “After describing their farm and Lennie's rabbits, George tells him, 'Ever'body gonna be nice to you!. Ain't gonna be no more trouble!. Nobody gonna hurt nobody nor steal from 'em,' expanding their private farm to a universal vision of peace and kindness!. It is a spoiled vision, however, as both the reader and George now know!. Lennie begs, 'Le's get that place now,' and George replies, 'Sure, right now,' as he puts the gun to the back of Lennie's head and pulls the trigger,” (Bloom's Notes: Of Mice & Men!.) This is the dream of every child!. Lennie mentions colored rabbits but George does not, because he knows colored rabbits are just a fantasy and an unattainable childish dream!.
Lennie would always get in trouble no matter where he went, and for that George would always be forced to keep on running!. Even Slim said, “You hadda, George!. I swear you hadda,”(107 Lennie had the mind of a child and he didn't know what he was doing was wrong as he was doing it, only realizing it later!. He had no ability to remember George's instructions!. George was constantly having to get Lennie out of the messes he made, but it wasn't good for either of them to have to constantly keep running!. George knew the dream was just that, and he didn't want to have to keep running, because a real man does not run away from his problems, but faces them!.
George was not callous!. He did not get joy or satisfaction out of killing his friend!. It was inevitable that someone would shoot him, and chances were, if it was someone like Carlson, they would enjoy it and make it painful!. It was better, in a sense, that it was George that did it, because he had no malice in his heart for Lennie!. He did not drag it out!. He shot him in the back of the head like Candy should have done to his dog, “I ought to of shot that dog myself, George!. I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog,” (61)!. because the dog was a part of him as Lennie was a part of George!. Munro writes, “!.!.!.[I]t is vehicle that Steinbeck uses to contrast the reactions of the various men!. While George, Candy, and Slim know that Lennie is the personification of innocence and never meant to harm anyone, Curley, Carlson, and Whit are bent on vengeance!. They give no thought to the man or the sequence of events!. George and Slim, however, do assess the full situation and are able to elude the posse long enough for George to usher Lennie out of the world without destroying his hope of attaining a better, more hospitable future,”(Munro, C!. Lynn)!. Lennie experienced no pain!. By that one action of shooting Lennie, George gave himself a lifetime of more pain than Lennie would ever had experienced!.
George killed Lennie although he really did not want to!. He killed him because it would be better for Lennie to be killed by a friend than by someone who didn't care about him!. George knew that Lennie was going to be killed, unless George decided to run, and he made the decision that he could not run away anymore!. George is a hero for killing Lennie because he did not want to kill him, “The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied,” (106)!. Even though it pained him to do it, he killed him!. Www@QuestionHome@Com