I was reminded recently of a production of Of Mice and Men that I worked on last year. One issue that came up at many post show discussions was the morality of George's killing of Lennie in the end. Some feel that George shouldn't have done it and that there were other options. What do you think?

Given the time period, did George make the morally correct choice in killing Lennie?

Would such a choice be morally correct today?

Is it morally acceptable to kill another human being mercifully in order to save them from a worse fate?

Eek! What a sad subject for discussion. Nothing close to home, I hope?

Given the time period, did George make the morally correct choice in killing Lennie?
I think so. Lenny would have been lynched on the spot.

Would such a choice be morally correct today?
Probably not because he wouldn't be likely to face a public lynching. Probably some sort of facility for the mentally-handicapped who commit crimes.

Is it morally acceptable to kill another human being mercifully in order to save them from a worse fate?

Yes, I think so. Ever read 'The Beach' by Nevil Shute? Facing imminent death from fallout radiation, families elected to take poison and feed it to their children in order to avoid an inevitable painfully drawn-out death. Allied spies in WWII often took their own lives, and those of their comrades before being apprehended, in order to avoid death after torture (and likely extraction of information) by the Nazis. German soldiers in panzers had a sidearm on hand to shoot themselves (or their comrades) in the head if one of them was pinned down and unable to get free from a firy tank to avoid burning to death. I think killing was/would be merciful (and prudent) in all of those cases. There are numerous situations that I can think of, all involving inevitable death without hope, in which it is better to just end it quickly and humanely if possible.

Only close in that I played Lennie in that production.



More likely shot... that's what Curly and the others set out to do.



It's interesting that Steinbeck didn't make the same choice for Lennie in the book. Especially since Lennie is based on a real person... the other characters are composites.



Having played the man, I can't imagine what it would be like for someone like him to be put into an asylum. The thought is painful.



I agree. There is a moment of foreshadowing in the play in regards to the dog... that it is a man's responsibility to put down his own dog. Do you think Lennie is George's responsibility? Do the men in your example have an obligation? Perhaps its different in those cases.

I act a bit myself. Of Mice & Men is a play I've thought of suggesting to my drama group from time to time.

The trite answer is that... it's all pretend. If nobody got killed at the end, the agonising choices faced by desperate men in a crushing situation that are central to what the play is trying to say wouldn't be pointed up nearly so much.

One might as well ask What would have happened to Macbeth if he hadn't killed Duncan? about "the Scottish Play"* or Would Mr Quigley have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those pesky kids? in Scooby Doo. For the context of the drama, they are irrelevant.

But in terms of discussing the drama and exploring[i] the text, and drawing comparisons to wider society, as you have done, such questions can be good fun.

My answers:
1. No - killing someone is never the morally [i]correct choice. It can sometimes be morally expedient, and therefore forgiveable, but it can never be morally correct. Even killing in self defence is certainly understandable, and not worthy of punishment, but I can't see how it should ever be praiseworthy. George doesn't kill Lennie in defence of anyone (except maybe Lennie himself), so "correct" is the wrong word for what he does - though I think it's the least worst option.

2. Not correct, for the same reasons, and not expedient, because of the advances that have been made in the care of the mentally impaired (as Lennie clearly is). If Lennie were black, though, I wonder whether modern America would treat him very different from the way George feared he would be treated. This story doesn't auger well.

3. Acceptable? Sometimes, yes, depending on the severity of the "worse fate" and the likelihood of it. Shooting someone that's being burned at the stake to put them out of their current, unavoidable torment (as per the Daniel Day-Lewis movie of Last of the Mohicans is one thing. Killing someone that might face a nasty end if other things come to pass is on shakier ground, I think.

*I hate the actorly superstitiousness and pomposity that not only makes them think saying "Macbeth" is unlucky, but that they have to practially verbalise the inverted commas around their euphemism of choice.

I have to ask, do you think that the decision to pull the feeding tube from Terri Schiavo an immoral one on the above grounds? That seems to be the case you are making, but I don't remember your opinion on the matter when it came up for discussion long ago. How about the decision to pull any life support from a catastrophically ill patient who will never recover? Your position seems contrary to most Europeans I've encountered and discussed the matter with. I remember when my husband's grandmother was dying at hospice, and suffering so much. They couldn't give her morphine because it would kill her and my thoughts were...so what? Give her the flipping morphine and end her pain! Instead, she eventually dehydrated to death in agony. I had many French friends and neighbors at that time, and they all told me that in France it isn't uncommon for this to happen when a patient is terminally, acutely ill and suffering at the last days of life.

I think you misunderstand me. I am making a distinction here between morally correct and morally expedient/acceptable.

I don't think it's ever morally correct to kill someone, in as much as I don't think anyone should ever get any praise or plaudits for doing so, or should have the luxury of a clear conscience for having done so.

However, that's not the same thing as saying that it's never morally expedient to kill - e.g. in self defence, some cases of euthanasia (Terry Schiavo, for example).

In other words, it is sometimes necessary to kill, and it might be the course of action that causes the least suffering for all involved. In such circumstances, no condemnation or punishment should be applied i.e. the killing can be deemed acceptable. But that doesn't mean that, in such circumstances, a killing becomes - in an of itself - a "good thing". It may be the least terrible option, but it still sucks.

Maybe I'm over-egging the meaning of "correct" towards "exemplary" or "praiseworthy". But I think it's still a distinction worth making. I think if we ever start, as a civilisation, to see killing as a positive good in it's own right, we've in big trouble. Even the time-travel thought experiment of "would you kill the infant Hitler?" relies on the avoidance of his future harm to millions as a trade-off to the smaller harm of killing a baby,and this implicitly accepts that killing anyone - even Hitler - is not morally "correct" in it's own right.

Well, if you do consider it. Get a good George. You can have the best Lennie in the world, but if George can't walk the fine line between parental frustration and anger, you're screwed. The play won't work. The audience has to see why George needs Lennie just as much as Lennie needs George. It's George's tragedy after all... not Lennie's.



True one can claim that it is merely for the sake of drama, but knowing the fate of the man on whom Lennie is based, Steinbeck makes the conscious choice to kill the character rather than have him sent to an asylum. The real Macbeth did kill his cousing King Duncan to assume the throne. Shakespeare may have changed the history of Macbeth for dramatic effect, but there are instances in his plays where a change from history is meant to say something in particular. For example, his attribution to Canterbury of the speech that "convinces" the Henry V to go to war. In his source, Holinshed's Chronicles, the speech is attributed to Exeter. In my mind, Shakespeare's change is making a statement about the Church's role in politics - as a lobbying force. But this may be a topic for discussion elsewhere.

Which leads us to:



Expedient, to me, implies a self-interest on the part of the person engaging in the questionable action. If not, then you have to ask is the action suitable to the circumstance, if it is, then wouldn't it be correct? I believe that, morally, getting Lennie as close as he could ever be to "the dream" and killing him in that moment is better than having him be shot in the gut by Curly, never understanding why - or locking him up and restraining him, again, with Lennie never understanding why. Perhaps I'm too close to it, but I think that makes it different than, say... assisted suicide where both parties understand the outcome and what will occur if nothing is done.

Perhaps this situation is different even than what happened with Schiavo. Both had no real idea, in my opinion, that they were going to die. The difference is that Schiavo, to my knowledge, wouldn't have been tortured or killed in the manner that Lennie would've been had George not killed him. Does that make it different?

Schiavo may, indeed, have been a case of moral expedience. But some of the other examples given by Mrs. P... I'm not so sure.



In some areas of the United States, I'm inclined to agree.



I guess that depends on what whether that nasty end would be the equivalent or worse than death. I would argue that, for Lennie anyway, the alternatives were far worse than what happened. Does that make it morally correct? Again, I think expedience implies a self-interest on the part of the person doing the killing. Maybe there's another way of putting it. I don't think of morally correct as, necessarily, praiseworthy... sometimes the best thing to do is the most unpopular and I wouldn't be expecting praise for it.



It's become habit with me. I'm not particularly superstitious about the whole thing, but I call it Mac'ers.