Quotations About Killing Candy S Dog and Lennie Explained

Of Mice and Men part 6
Killing Candy’s dog and killing Lennie
Subject: / English
Age groups: / 11-14, 15-16
Topic: / Of Mice and Men

Quotations about killing Candy’s dog and Lennie explained

Match the quotations and their explanations

‘right in the back of the head’ / Candy stresses that he is attached to his dog because he has been his companion for a very long time.
‘I wisht somebody’d shoot me if I got old an’ a cripple’ / Carlson points out that the dog is worthless to Candy and, moreover, that he is suffering so much that he cannot enjoy life any more.
‘opinions were law’ / Carlson explains that the dog is unable to move and suffers a lot.
‘He ain’t no good to you, Candy. He ain’t no good to himself’ / Slim suggests that shooting another being can be an act of mercy that brings relief to suffering.
‘had him so long’ / This description is used in the novel: to describe how Carlson kills Candy’s dog and how George kills Lennie. Killing someone by holding the gun in the back of the head is supposed to be an immediate death which does not cause the victim to suffer.
‘He’s all stiff with rheumatism’ / Slim is described to be a man who has authority over the other workers. Everybody does what he says. They regard his words as if it was the law.

Task - Insert the quotations into the text below:

Killing Candy’s dog and killing Lennie

There are some parallels between killing Candy’s dog and killing Lennie. The dog is killed out of mercy because – as Carlson points out – ______. The motive for killing Lennie could be justified in the same way. Lennie is also killed for reasons of mercy. He has neither been any good to himself nor to George.

Lennie’s wish to stroke something soft is so strong that he has to do it all the time. It becomes an obsession. Being so strong, his stroking ends violently. He strokes so hard that animals die; he even kills Curley’s wife – a grown up woman. Lennie can be considered to be mentally ill. The dog on the other hand is physically ‘crippled’: he has no teeth, ______and he stinks. Slim, whose ______, says______. Slim suggests that certain disabilities make life unbearable and that death is a relief. Thereby Slim justifies George’s act of killing Lennie in advance.

The others suffer from the dog and from Lennie: Candy feels attached to his dog because he ______. George is trapped by the responsibility he feels for Lennie. The men on the ranch cannot see another alternative but to get rid of the dog and later Lennie. The major difference is that the dog is shot by Carlson who is not emotionally attached to him while Lennie is shot by his friend George. Lennie’s death is thus more dramatic and more inevitable than the dog’s. Even his friend cannot cope with him alive.

The way the dog and Lennie are shot is almost exactly the same. Both are killed with Carlson’s gun which is held ______. Neither the dog nor Lennie are supposed to suffer. The killing of the dog serves as a model for the killing of Lennie.