In part three of Of Mice and Men, Curley forces
Lennie to fight because he was smiling from his memory of the ranch. Curley was
yelling "'Come
on, ya big bastard. Get up on your feet. No big son-of-a-bitch on gonna laugh
at me. I'll show ya who's yella.' Lennie looked up helplessly at George, and
then he got up an tried to retreat." (62-63) Lennie is the kind of
person who trys to stay out of trouble and not make George angry. He
also heavily relies on George. When Lennie and Curley were fighting,
"Lennie gave a cry of terror. Blood welled from his nose. 'George,' he cried....
Lennie's hands remained at his sides; he was too frightened to defend
himself... Lennie covered his face with huge paws and bleated with terror.
'Make 'um stop, George.' Lennie took his hands away from his face and looked
about for George, and Curley slashed at his eyes. The big face was covered with
blood." (63)
Lennie is so humble and cautious when it come to fights, he never
touched Curley once. When Lennie got caught in the fight against Curley, George, Slim, Carlson, and Candy all
watched it happen. The only difference that was happening in the fight was that
George was rooting Lennie on.
George
was encouraging Lennie to fight back by yelling, "Get 'im Lennie!"
(63) multiple times. When Lennie heard George telling him to fight him, Lennie
felt he had no other choice so when Curley was swinging his fist at him he,
"reached for it. The next minute Curley was flopping like a fish on a
line, and his closed fist was lost in Lennie's big hand." (63) Lennie had
broken Curley's wrist.
Lennie
was scared. When Lennie let go of Curley's fist, Candy told Carlson to take
Curley to the doctor. Slim was helping Curley feel better. The only ones
supporting Lennie was George and Slim after he helped Curley. George was not
mad after what happened. Lennie was pretty badly hurt, but no one went to
support him other than George and Slim. This symbolizes how all of the
characters are more loyal to Curley who started the fight for no reason, than
for Lennie, a man who is just trying to assimilate to the community.
You added to my thinking when you said in your last sentence about how not as many people cared about Lennie as did Curley. I thought this was interesting because it made me wonder why not as many people wanted to help Lennie, especially since they don't know that Lennie is intellectually disabled, yet (though some may be suspicious). Maybe more people rushed to Curley first because of two reasons: he is the bosses son, and they might have assumed that a big guy like Lennie could take care of himself (and maybe thought he wasn't as badly injured).
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