Literary Response: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Most of sociologist explained that human is Social-Individual being that formed with complex thoughts. From the sentence before, we can see that human needs each other because they have many will, desire or hope that they can`t reach alone. Some of people have a hunch that human relation just a method to reach your will, but some of them also thinks that human relation is way to live. So, Is Friendship worth too much? Or it just a camouflage to reach their own will? John Steinbeck answers those questions in “Of mice and men”.
It`s the interesting story about two guys named Lennie and George that traveling together to reach their own will. In their latest destination, they deal with many incidents that wobble their friendship relation.  Through the conflict that happened to Lennie and George, we can see their pure friendship.

            The first conflict that happened to them both was when they travel to Soledad. They found a small pond and Lennie the big guy hurried himself to drink the water. “His huge companion dropped his blankets and flung himself down and drank from the surface of the green pool; drank with long gulps, snorting into the water like a horse”(Page 2). George worried about Lennie and he stopped Lennie to drink the water. “Lennie, for God’ sakes don’t drink so much.” (Steinbeck 5). He stopped him because the water looked dirty and unhealthy. ““I ain’t sure it’s good water,” he said. “Looks kinda scummy.” (Page 3). We can see that George worried about Lennie`s condition. He didn`t want to let Lennie got sick. That is the friendship roles, we care each other, and we share each other without any doubt. What is George purpose to make a friendship with Lennie? From this case we can see it`s a pure friendship.

            In the first conflict, we can see how George cares about Lennie. In this second conflict example, we will see how Lennie cares about George. In the story, When Lennie`s visited Crook`s stable, Crook scared Lenny by giving an anxious joke to Lennie that George wouldn`t come back. His voice grew soft and persuasive. “S’pose George don’t come back no more. S’pose he took a powder and justain’t coming back. What’ll you do then?” (Page 35). Even though it was a joke, Lennie believe it and he got mad about his joke. “Crooks bored in on him. “Want me ta tell ya what’ll happen? They’ll take ya to the booby hatch. They’ll tie ya up with a collar, like a dog.” Suddenly Lennie’s eyes centered and grew quiet, and mad. He stood up and walked dangerously toward Crooks. “Who hurt George?” he demanded. (Page 35). In that conflict, we can see again the friendship roles. Lennie cares about George, he didn`t want to let George hurt or suffer. We can see that mind disability can`t limit someone`s feeling, and also we can see how pure their friendship is.

The last conflict is a great proof that their friendship is pure. Lennie got a trouble in the ranch. He killed Curley`s wife by broke her neck up. “He shook her; and her body flopped like a fish. And then she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck” (Page 45). Then Lennie fled to the brush, and a moment after that, Candy found Curley`s wife body laid on the hay. ““Oh, Jesus Christ!” He looked about helplessly, and he rubbed his beard. And then he jumped up and went quickly out of the barn.” (Page 46). Then he told George for what he saw before. George didn`t want to let Lennie got caught by Curley because George was told by Candy that Curley will torture Lennie if he got caught. “But Candy said excitedly, “We oughta let ‘im get away. You don’t know that Curley. Curley gon’ta wanta get ‘im lynched. Curley’ll get ‘im killed.”” (Page 46). Then George told Curley and his friend about his wife and they took their weapon hastily to kill George. George fools them all by told them that Lennie ran to south, because he knew that Lennie would run to the brush in the north. “We come from north so he would of went south.” (Page 48). Then George went to the brush and he met Lennie there. He shot Lennie in the brush after he told their will. “And George raised the gun and steadiedit, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again.” (Page 52). The conflicts above show that George had chosen a hard decision. He dares to fight his own sadness. He will be more suffered if he looks Lennie being tortured by Curley. So he decided to shot him down in the ranch.

Friendship was found long time ago since first human live. We should know that having a friend is a necessity because we can`t live alone. George Steinbeck had successfully implying the pure friendship in his short story. Answering the question above, is friendship worth too much? Yes it is.