Importance Of George's Relationship In 'Of Mice And Men'

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“Of Mice and Men” Essay. From the start of this novel we can see that George holds the power in their unique relationship. Without George, it would seem that Lennie would continuously get not only himself, but others in trouble. Although Lennie does not do this deliberately he still needs George to guide him and make decisions for him. For us, George appears to be like a father figure towards Lennie, he attempts to plan all of their everyday communications to try keep life as normal as possible for the both of them. From the start of the novel, we are immediately informed about George being the leader of this relationship; “They had walked in single file down the path, and even in the open one stayed behind the other.” It would seem to us from that the start that George and Lennie are ‘opposites’, Steinbeck does this to specifically play with the reader and the…show more content…
On the ranch, the pair meet a man called Slim, throughout the novel George confides in Slim when he tells him that they are on the run from a bad thing that Lennie had done in Weed. When George confides in Slim it shows powerlessness too because he’s not strong enough to keep all of this negative information to himself. Steinbeck hints at ‘jealousy’ during the novel and reveals it when Crooks manipulates Lennie telling how something may have happened to George and it could end up that he might never come back. Lennie soon shows us that he gains some initiative when he has a certain degree of power for George when he stands up to Crooks telling him that of course George would come back and that he basically had nothing to worry about cause George would never do anything like that to him, this also reveals the closeness of their relationship resulting in it being more powerful and threatening to the
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