Of Mice And Men: Friendship - Why does George need Lennie?

Essay by TheEhHigh School, 10th gradeA, March 2004

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Everyone Needs Someone

A person without a friend in the world has no purpose. They become outcasts, with no one to lean on when they're experiencing pain, no one to tell their troubles and problems to, no one to share happiness with, no one to care for.

They have no one to care for them.

George and Lennie share a bond so strong that when one is destroyed, the other inevitably is as well. Steinbeck often stresses how ranchers are loners, and George and Lennie are the only ones who travel in pairs. They seem to be two halves of the same person, and they know how special together they truly are. "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world...They got no family. They don't belong no place...With us, it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us..."

It Oes always easier when you have someone you can talk to. George and Lennie are migrant-workers and so they don Oet stay long in one place - they have only themselves. They depend on each other. They need each other to live. Lennie needs George as a manager to think for him and to keep him out of trouble, but George needs Lennie too in some ways.

Lennie is a companion for George, and he makes him feel special. George is not a nobody with Lennie; he's never alone and he always has a task to do. One of the most important things for him is that Lennie's enthusiasm keeps the vision of the farm alive, which gives George a reason to keep living and working hard.

Whenever George is in the bunkhouse without Lennie, he deals himself a solitaire hand. George is pretty...