Cruelty In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Of Mice and Men, a novel written by John Steinbeck, is mainly about two close friends who struggle to get by during the Great Depression, along with the other men of the ranch. In this portion of the book, the owner of an old, blind dog is faced with the situation of all the men wanting to get rid of his dog for being a smelly nuisance. These words are said with the intent of getting rid of the man’s companion for the benefit of themselves. However, could one just simply assume that these words were intentionally used for cruelty? What does it even mean to be cruel? According to the merriam-webster dictionary, it is defined as inflicting pain or suffering upon something. But, what if you looked at the situation in a different light? Was it really for the benefit of himself or for the benefit of the tired dog? Holistically, it is shown that both sides could be argued for. In Of Mice and Men, the characters naturally make two sided decisions that simply show that there can never be certain acts of kindness without the acts of cruelty.
Humans make cruel decisions everyday. It is something that we do out of our own instinct to survive. Within this book, we see the men of the farm make several decisions that they know would …show more content…
We can look at other events within the book and see that sometimes even the simple words that people say can actually be looked at in a different light. At a certain point in the story, Crooks, the colored man who has had a history of being discriminated against, has a stern talk with Lennie (72). Here, he gives him a different picture of life where George leaves him out of selfishness. Similar to tough love, he says these words with harsh intents, but actually prepares him for future events. He basically readies him for something that he has observed from the world that they currently lived in. Through this, Lennie was able to somewhat mentally prepare himself for what eventually would happen between him and

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