My literary Hero

A literary hero that I choose is George Milton in “Of Mice and Men”. He is a tragic hero in which he has been living his entire life and has also been taking care of his best friend Lennie Small. Lennie's last name contributes to a contradictory statement in which shows that it does not really fit his physique. George is of short and stout, with a shortage of temper in which he could withstand. Both George and Lennie's dreams are to get a job and get enough money from it in order to buy a farm in which they could have chickens and rabbits, growing enough food for themselves to live. However, this has been their dream since a long time ago and they have had no luck in achieving it yet because of Lennie's misbehavior of getting into trouble while ranching and bucking in their previous jobs.

Lennie's reasons in getting into trouble is because he has a greater physique of normal men, but with a mental abilities of a child. He does not give any harm in purpose, but because of his curiosity in doing so.

George is a tragic hero in a strange way, because the heroic deed that he does in his life is that he kills his best friend. Why does killing your best friend make you a tragic hero you ask? This is because it is in the end for Lennie's own good. In doing so, George is preventing Lennie from getting into even more trouble. When George and Lennie has found a new ranch and as they do their job, they come into contact with the ranch's owner's son, a somewhat semi-pro boxer, named Curley. He does not like his wife interacting with men other than him and is in a deep anger because of his overprotective self. The wife takes an interest in Lennie and talks with him and then a disaster strikes when Lennie “accidentally” kills the wife in the barn. From this, an angry mob from the ranch is set out to kill Lennie.

When George kills his best friend, it also shows that George has realized his great flaw: living with Lennie without any help of his mental abilities. Along with this, he also kills his own dream of starting a farm. Without Lennie, it will not be possible to earn enough money for his dreams to come true. On the contrary, if George had no lived with Lennie his whole life, then he would have been able to save enough money until now in order to buy the farm. The biggest flaw for George is living with Lennie, which has made his life a struggle, and also prevents him from achieving what he wants.