Avery Droucker Block B

May 8, 2017

Essay for “Of mice and men”

Thesis stamen: The Killing of Candy’s dog is similar to the Killing if Lennie.

Bang! Being the last thing you hear of a character out of a novel. This happened twice in the
story “Of Mice and Men”, when Candy’s dog was put down and when George let Lennie go, since they
both did it out of mercy and love.

At the begging of the story, when George and Lennie got to the ranch, that night Carlson said
that Candy should put that dog out of its misery because he was so old and wasn’t doing any good for
himself, or anyone else. Candy put up a good argument but sadly lost and understood it was for the
best; Candy couldn’t do it, so Carlson did it for Candy. Later Candy told George that he, himself, should
have put the old dog down, just to make sure it was quick and painless. This later lead to George killing
Lennie, with the same gun that killed Candy’s dog.

Comparing Lennie and Candy’s dog, you see that they are the best friend to the person who had
the final say to their end. Lennie basically acted like a dog, doing everything he was told to do, he was
just younger then Candy’s dog. When Lennie was killed, it was with the same pistol that killed Candy’s
dog, it was to give him mercy because if Curly had gotten to Lennie, it wouldn’t have been a quick end.
Curly wanted revenge, and that would have meant much pain for Lennie, like if the dog wasn’t put down
when it was, we would have just gotten older and it would have been harder for him to survive.

Candy’s care for his dog shows something similar to George’s care for Lennie. They both want to
help the other side the best they can, but sometimes it’s hard to help them. George was always running
with Lennie, which made it hard to always find a job for George, since Lennie was always getting in
trouble. It isn’t very similar to why Candy had his dog put down, it was for the best though, since
Candy’s dog was just stinging up the place and could barely eat from all its missing teeth. They still put
both down at the best time, since if Lennie want killed he would be chase across the country by Curly,
just for revenge, cause Lennie to never be able to do any work making it so much harder for George to
find work that can pay enough to keep both of them alive. Also, if Curly had ever found Lennie, he
wouldn’t hesitate to make Lennie last moments miserable. This also would have happened to Candy’s
Dog because it just would have become continually harder for the dog every day with his aging bones
and his teeth slowly falling out, just trying to keep up with life.

Later on during the book, after Candy joins in on the dream, Candy says to George "I ought to of
shot that dog myself, I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog." (Quote from the book). This
foreshowed George shooting Lennie himself, since Lennie is George’s best friend, like a dog is to a man.
This relationship is shown when George was later talking to Slim about how Lennie would do as he says,
no matter what: for example “"I turns to Lennie and says, 'Jump in.' An' he jumps. Couldn't swim a
stroke. He damn near drowned before we could get him. An' he was so damn nice to me for pullin' him
out. Clean forgot I told him to jump in.” (Quote from George out of the book) This piece of script shows
that Lennie isn’t too bright, but is still very loyal like a dog for George pulling him out of the puddle.
 Comparing the reasons behind the killings we see that in this story, we see that it was for the
best because there wasn’t any more permeant options that would be the best for either Candy’s dog or
Lennie. This may be because of the author, John Steinbeck, for his look on the word is dark and cruel,
and so he writes a world that represents his thoughts of is point of view. ‘Slim looked through George
and beyond him. "Ain't many guys travel around together," he mused. "I don't know why. Maybe
ever'body in the whole damn world is scared of each other."’ (Quote from the story) does show a bit of
what Steinbeck things of the world, by saying that everyone in the whole world is scared of each other.
This is part of the reason why you can compare Candy’s dog’s death to Lennie’s death, because
Steinbeck only sees the darkness in the darkness in the world and no way out of it because he only left
the one way out for the two characters.