The way the characters react towards the shooting of Candy’s dog reveals a lot abut the characters

that
we might not have expected. Carlson offers to shoot the old dog, complaining many times of the smell.
The shooting of Candy’s dog shows the callousness of Carlson and the reality of old age and infirmity.

This action evinces that Candy is apologising to the dog on Carlson’s behalf. Candy treats his dog like a
human as his dog is his only companion. However, the workers at the ranch see him only as a dog. When
Carlson mentions to Candy about shooting his dog, Candy’s actions and dialogues convey how Candy
feels about this idea.

In Section three of “Of Mice and Men” we come to a significant part of the story where Carlson shoots
Candy’s dog. From previous sections in the book, Steinbeck has made it evident that Candy’s dog is
important to Candy. When we are first introduced to Candy and his dog, Steinbeck repeatedly describes
both characters as “old”, showing how alike both are.

Slim also reassures Candy when he says “you can have a pup if you want to”. When Candy finally gives in
and allows Carlson to shoot his dog, it shows the reader that candy wants to be over and done with and
wants his dog a swift and painless death. There is some empathy shown when Carlson says “come on
boy” to soften the blow for the dog and more so Candy.

Once Carlson has taken the dog to shoot, Steinbeck builds the tension within the characters just before
the dog is killed. “George followed to the door and shut the door” – this proposes George’s kind nature
and sympathy towards Candy and his dog- this could be one reason as to why George did not give an
opinion on whether Candy’s dog should be shot. When George offers “anybody like to play a little
euchre” it is evidently shown that George is trying to change the topic and he doesn’t want to worry
Candy about the dog, this makes the reader see George taking people’s emotions into account before
his own, we also saw this earlier in the book when George stands up for Lennie.

There is a lot of age discrimination. And everyone sees him as an old man, waiting to die. There’s a big
comparison between Candy and his dog. His dog is also old and lonely, and Carlson wanting to shoot it,
is like saying that Candy’s time is over as well. Also Candy feels guilty not shooting his dog himself,
instead of a stranger (Carlson).

This perceptibly puts Candy in deep thought, it shows Candy’s realisation of his own mortality when Slim
states this. The dog, in this case tells us something of the owner. When Steinbeck shows the dog nearing
the end of its days it could show that candy was too. Also Steinbeck employs irony by saying that he
wanted someone to ‘shoot’ him when he got ‘old’ and ‘crippled’ which he almost is.

“Serial hacker Samy Kamkar turned up in an Arstechnica article yesterday with a pretty interesting hack.
He’s put together a system of hardware and software that can be put together to build a drone. From
there, that drone finds other drones out and about in operation, hacks the drone and then controls
them.

The increasing presence of drone technology in today’s society is quite evident. We hear on the news
quite frequently of a drone bombing or spying on someone in the war. Not only do we hear about what
drones do, we experience the benefits that they provide for us. When we listen to the weather there is a
possibly the information is received from an actual drone.
“A Brief History of Drones | The Nation.” A Brief History of Drones. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.
Villasenor, John. “Will “Drones” Outflank the Fourth Amendment?” Web log post. Forbes. Forbes
Magazine, 20 Sept. 2012. Web. 13 Dec. 20 Boyle, Ashley. “Drone Information Sources : Annotated
Bibliography.” ASP RSS. [Original source: https://essaytoolbox.com/essay-maker]