Loyalty
Another theme that you find strongly in the novel "Of Mice and Men" is loyalty. Loyalty in the novel is not only between George and Lennie it is also between Lennie and all of his pets he tries to have. When Lennie is offered a pup he has an immediate loyalty for his pup, because he doesn't want to leave his side. "I bet Lennie's right out there in the barn with his pup. He won't want to come in here no more how he's got a pup"(Steinbeck 48). Lennie may be a gentle giant, but he will still be loyal to his pets. Not only does Lennie have to be loyal to his pups but George ends up being loyal to Lennie more than anything in the novel by letting him get a pup. Critic Henry Thorton Moore also believes this to be true. "George is no more than pathetic. He attracts sympathy because he has to lose his friend Lennie to whom he has been so loyal, and whom he has to kill at last in order to save him from the others"(Moore 342). The criticism speaks to me because it tells you that George was extremely loyal to Lennie. Even though in the end he has to act like nothings wrong and with that George gained my loyalty as a reader as well. Not only was George loyal to Lennie in the beginning of the novel, but in the end he ended up being extremely loyal to him, by kind of doing him a favor in a way.