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Nightmare Fuel / Of Mice and Men

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  • At the end, Curley starts to gather up a lynch mob to catch Lennie, and advises them to start by shooting him in the gut to bring him down. Shotguns back then weren't exceptionally powerful and a big guy like Lennie would certainly have survived that part. But lynch mobs back in the 30s got really ugly. And really imaginative. This is probably one reason why George shoots poor Lennie in the head himself.
  • If you have a mental disorder, Lennie can be a very relatable character. He doesn't intend to be a handful to people, he just is. As a result, it's not hard to wonder on the last page when you're going to screw up that one time too many and make people either abandon you or take it out on you.
  • Slim points out to George that even if Lennie isn't killed by the Curley's lynch mob and gets handed over to law enforcement, he would spend the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. Especially in the 1930s, being locked up in a psychiatric hospital (kept in restraints, drugged into a stupor and/or given electroconvulsion "therapy") would have been a Fate Worse than Death for Lennie.

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