Of Mice And Men Lennie's Betrayal

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Imagine the scenario of this. An unstoppable, high-speed train is headed towards a person’s grandmother. To save her, they must change the tracks, but that would mean killing the unsuspecting group of people walking over. They cannot stop the train. Who do they save? This ultimatum can sway even the most moral people because it asks them to make a difficult decision. Tough decisions, like in the scenario, create inevitable feelings of betrayal. Many, unfortunately, are familiar with that feeling; people usually describe it as a stab in the back, a breach of trust, or an undoable pain that roots in someone’s heart. Sometimes, like in the story Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, that stab in the back is fatal. Lennie’s death, committed by George, possesses two perspectives as to whether …show more content…
Although Lennie’s death may be seen as euthanasia, his betrayal would better be described as murder.

Those who believe Lennie’s death was euthanasia commonly give three justifications. First, George killed Lennie to save him from a worse fate, one that would have been inflicted by Curley or the crew themselves. This argument, however, completely overlooks the fact that Lennie had the same fate in the end: death—whether it was by Curley or George. Furthermore, it glances at the fact that George did not try to change Lennie’s fate by running away. The second argument people make is that George killed Lennie to save him from the harm he would have inflicted on himself. To that reasoning, it must be pointed out that if Lennie is dead,
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