Judging George Milton
George Milton could be known as a murderer, or he could be known as a savior. I believe that he was a savior. He in a way preserved Lennie's happy life. Some people would say that he did wrong because he shot Lennie in the back of the head in "cold blooded murder," I say he had Lennie thinking happy thoughts, and took him out of the world in a way that he was hoping would have him waking up in paradise.
I believe that George did him a favor because as is stated in Groiler online, "The prevailing attitudes toward the retarded throughout history have ranged from contempt to reverence." George made sure that his death was quick and painless, so that Lennie wouldn't know what hit him. Nobody would have cared that Lennie didn't mean to kill her, they just would have said he was guilty and that would be the end of it.
Saying that Lennie was guilty, is like saying you should kill a toddler for accidentally killing someone. You can't hold a child responsible, so why should you be able to hold someone with the mind of a child responsible? An example of his child like thought process is shown when he says "Lennie went back and looked at the dead girl. The puppy lay close to her. Lennie picked it up. 'I'll through it way. It's bad enough like it is.'"(Of Mice and Men pg. 92) When you analyze what he said, you realize that he thought killing the puppy was worse than killing Curley's wife.
Some people may argue that George could have sent Lennie to a home, but that isn't true. People need to start facing the reality that people with mental disabilities were not regarded then as they are today. They did not have state of the art facilities and homes. They had insane asylums.
In these asylums, they had tortures such as electro shock therapy, and lobotomies. Electro shock therapy is pretty self explanatory. Lobotomies are a little less well known, a lobotomy is "the operation if cutting into a lobe, as of the brain or the lung." Obviously this would not be a good choice for Lennie.
Other people may say that George could have called the police about Lennie. While yes it would have kept both George and Curley from killing Lennie, would the police have been any nicer? I think not. The police would not have understood Lennie's situation, they would have seen him as a murderer. They wouldn't have taken into consideration the facts everything that went on before Lennie broke her neck.
All in all I believe that George made the right choice in killing Lennie because he took him to a place where he wouldn't feel anything anymore, and also where he couldn't hurt anyone else. George loved Lennie all the way to the end, and past that too. He committed a selfless act of love in killing Lennie because while causing traumatic damage to himself, he saved Lennie and others from potential harm and being traumatized themselves. I hope through all of the points I have brought out in this essay, that you realize that George is truly innocent and did what he had to do. In a tough world you make tough choices because you have to. In some situations people are better off dead, and Lennie was. That is what George foresaw coming because after looking at all the other alternatives that was the best one.