Many have argued that George did the wrong thing of killing Leonie and that this makes him a bad friend. George isn’t a great friend either. He’s grumpy and bossy. The way George behaves towards Leonie is just very horrible. ” if I was alone I could live so easy. .. No messes at all… Stay in a cat house all night… Could put you in a cage… ” George may have exploded and spilt all that anger out by mistake but when someone says things like that part of it must be true. George has his moment of frustration and that understandable but
Leonie is like a child and they too make mistakes so Leonie can’t be blamed for being born with a mental disorder. He also makes Leonie seem like a burden. ‘Whatever we anti got, that’s what you want. God a’ mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get job an’ work, an’ no trouble. No mess at all… ” Leonie can bring trouble to a person’s way of living. He has to be looked after and it makes George question and blurt out that taking responsibility of Leonie is too much to handle. These quotes signify that
George had in fact been a bad of a friend he was to Leonie. George did the right thing by killing Leonie and he did it for the right reasons not negative ones. Candy tells George that he should have killed his dog but he was being selfish and didn’t end his dog’s misery himself. ‘”l ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn’t ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog. ” This is foreshadowing through Candy and what had occurred to his dog. It precedes what will happen to Leonie and what lead George into doing the act he did in the end of the novella.
George didn’t want a stranger to kill his friend in cold blood. He didn’t want to turn out like Candy, who was left with guilt and loneliness because he selflessly thought of his needs not his dogs. George did this act out of love and compassion of their friendship. He didn’t want to kill Leonie because he knew Leonie didn’t mean to kill Curlers wife but he couldn’t risk Leonie being hurt by the angry, careless and non-understanding ranchers or law men. Therefore he did what he had to do to protect Leonie from everyone around including Leonie himself.
Many say that it was the rang thing to do on George’s part of his friendship to kill Leonie and that puts up the doubt that if he really was a good friend. George is in fact an excellent friend believe it or not. He took this heavy choice of killing Leonie not out of punishment but out of what’s best for everyone’s sake. Also George needs a future he can’t always be running from trouble Leonie brings because that’s not living. George may act like a grumpy father figure but he really has a heart for Leonie and he most likely knew it was going to be a hard obstacle but it had to be done.
