Of Mice and Men Justice Quotes Page 1

We don’t quite know what happened in Weed. Did Lennie really do something bad, and are we sympathizing with fugitives from the law here? This is our first brush with the peculiar sense of justice in this book.

Even though Lennie is mentally slow, George doesn’t mistreat him. Of course, George is within his rights to think that his friend shouldn’t carry a decaying mouse around in his pocket, but it’s important that George is willing to explain to Lennie why he commits the seemingly unjust act of taking the mouse away. George appears to have a sense of justice, even about little things, and even when dealing with Lennie, who some might think doesn’t deserve an explanation. It’s another bit of evidence that George sees Lennie as deserving of equal treatment, no matter his condition.

George knows even before they go to the new ranch that Lennie is bound to get into some trouble. He even says it’s a foregone conclusion, as it’s what Lennie has always done before. We get an insight into George’s sense of justice here: no matter what Lennie does, George is willing to meet in the brush and presumably run off again with him, just like they left Weed. George seems to think that together, they can keep getting out of whatever scrapes Lennie gets into, rather than stick around and wait for justice to be served. Given what happens at the end of the book, George’s statement here makes us wonder whether his views on justice change over the course of the book.