Of Mice and Men

In many cultures mercy has been accepted. One example is the Eskimos and when and when a person is very old and thinks they have lived long enough, then they float away on a piece of ice to a peaceful death. In the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck George does the correct thing by killing Lennie. Mercy killing is correct if under the right set of circumstances. If George had not killed Lennie, then Curly would have made Lennie suffer a long slow painful death, or if curly did not kill Lennie himself then Lennie could have been thrown in jail.

George did the right thing by killing Lennie. Curly was very angry at Lennie for accidentally killing his wife and he would have tortured Lennie. By George killing Lennie in the most humane and reasonable way, he saved Lennie a lot of pain he would have gone through. As curly said in the book, "I'm gonna get him. I'm going for my shotgun. I'll kill the big son-of-a-bitch myself. I'll shoot 'im in the guts." Mercy killing is right if it puts someone out of the pain they are in or the pain they are going to be feeling.

When Curly found out about his wife death he said "You go in Soledad an' get a cop. Get Al Wilts, he's a deputy sheriff." If Curly did not kill Lennie, then he would have been thrown into jail. Lennie would have been very scared and alone and, once they found our about his condition, he would have been sent to a mental hospital. Mental hospitals back in those days did not understand the conditions of their patients and sometimes what they thought was helping was in fact, scaring their patients.

Mercy killing is correct. Taking away someone's life is awful, but if the person you are killing is going to die in a more painful way or is going to be treated in a way that is inhumane, then you have to put them out of their misery if nothing else can be done to better their condition.