Steinbeck is at pains to show the reader what a kind and simple person Lennie is because a central plot point is his killing of Curley's wife. Steinbeck wants the reader to understand clearly that the murder was accidental: Lennie has no malice and never wished to hurt Curley's wife. Steinbeck wants to raise our empathy for Lennie: he is a person caught up in a situation he can't fully understand. It's hard on him as a person with a mental disability having to lead the wandering, migrant life he does, as he constantly has to adjust to new and potentially confusing situations. Sometimes in these circumstances, Steinbeck says, bad things happen to good people. Tragically, because Lennie is so far at the bottom of the class ladder, he will never get a fair hearing. George kills him to spare him a worse fate.
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