George and Lennie's Relationship in Of Mice and Men

 George and Lennie are migrant workers that travel together around California to different ranches to find work. Lennie is a handicapped giant and is very dependent on George. George is a small man, but he has brains, something that Lennie doesn’t have. They are on their way to a new ranch when they stop at a riverbank to stop and rest when George finds Lennie petting a dead mouse. Lennie is petting this mouse to calm himself because he likes the feeling of soft things. George reminds Lennie to not talk when they get to the ranch and if he gets in trouble to come back to that spot at the river bank and hide. 

Curley is mentioned early in the story and doesn’t like Lennie to begin with, Curley is a captious man “His glanced coldly at George then at Lennie. His arms gradually bent at the elbows and his hands closed into fists. He stiffened and went into a slight crouch. His glance was at once calculating and pugnacious ” (Steinbeck 25)  Lennie and Curley get into a fight that ends with Curley having a broken hand and his ego being shut down, for “his hand got stuck in a machine.”  Later in the story when adversity hits one of the men, the swamper in the story, Candy, Lennie shares the dream that he and George came up with about living on a farm. George told Lennie this dream about living on a farm to give Lennie hope. On the farm though, were rabbits, something soft, and big enough for Lennie to pet without killing it. It fit all of Lennie’s needs. Lennie then shares this with Crooks the stable hand, he was a black man who was working there because of the state. Curley’s wife is explained as a “tart” multiple times in the book because she flirts with all of the guys even though she has a husband. Curley’s wife is attracted to Lennie in a weird way from the beginning because he’s something that she could control. 

Lennie at the end of the story is petting the puppies out in the barn when Curley’s wife comes in. She talks to him because she has no one else to talk to, they talk about how they both like soft things. She mentions that her hair is soft and Lennie grabs a hold of it. He then kills her with his own bare hands, by breaking her neck. Lennie remembers what George told him and he went to the river bank and hid in the bush. George and the other bunkhouse men went to go kill Lennie for killing Curley’s wife. George doesn’t want the other men to kill Lennie, so he does the honors by telling him their dream again about the farm. George shoots him right in the back of the head where the brain stem meets the spine. The boys were slightly confused about why George killed him, but they weren’t worried too long, George and one of the other bunkhouse men went and drank. While Curley and Carlson, two bunkhouse members, said “ ‘ Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them two guys?’ “ (Steinbeck 107).