Thursday, April 9, 2009

Of Mice and Men Blog #6 Favorite Character

Who is your favorite character in this book? Explain your reasons for choosing him or her.

My favorite character in Of Mice and Men has to probably be George. One of the reasons that I like George the most is that he takes care of Lennie even though he really doesn't have to. We never really learn why he does take care of Lennie other than that someone would've had to because Aunt Clara. He is really selfless for taking care of Lennie. He has to sacrifice so much of his own time and dreams for Lennie. Like he says to Lennie, he could've been so much happier without Lennie with him.
I sympathize with him, too. It's really hard to take care of a person like Lennie, and you have to neglect yourself to take care of the other person. With the tough lifestyle that workers like George and Lennie had, it must be even more difficult. But its good to have some kind of companionship, and that's what he had with Lennie. That made even more difficult to shoot Lennie. But I feel like that shooting Lennie was necessary so I don't blame George. But I do sympathize with him.
George is the most realistic character in the story because you get to see him in all these situations. You see him feeling helpless before shooting Lennie, and you can see his shortcomings and such. His character is developed the most, and you get to know George the best.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Of Mice and Men Blog: Euthanasia

Define "euthanasia." Then defend or condemn the practice and justify your beliefs.

I think that euthanasia is justified, but only if the person going to be euthanized agrees to it. Everyone can't just collectively decide that a person needs to be euthanized. Killing people isn't something that can be easily justified, but if the person is in so much pain and is going through so much suffering, then euthanasia is the option that would end the pain. If you have a disease that slowly kill you, and if it certainly will kill you, and will cause you a lot of pain before you die, I think that most people would rather die than to go through all that pain, never knowing when you were going to die.
For animals, I think it is fine. Take Candy's dog for example. Candy had loved it and cared for it ever since it was a puppy. But the dog had gotten so old, it was taking a toll on the dog. He couldn't move around without feeling pain and couldn't do any of the things it could've done when it was younger. He was blind in one eye, and the dog wouldn't want to live out his whole life because the pain would've gotten progressively worse. So Carlson shot it and put it out of its misery. And he shot in a way that the dog wouldn't feel any pain before dying. Candy was reluctant to have his dog euthanized, but he had to have realized that if he loved the dog as much as he did, then maybe death would be merciful to the dog.
I can understand why euthanasia is controversial. But I think people get to be a little selfish about it. They want to spend more time with the person being euthanized; they really love the person being euthanized and don't want to never see them for the rest of their lives. But, I guess at the end of the day, you have to weigh the suffering of the person you love against your feelings for them.