What is friendship? Friendship is having someone who you care for and have fun with. A friend will always help you both physically and mentally. The novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck exhibits many forms of friendship. Lennie, George, Candy, and Slim show the most friendship in this novel, benefit from each other's companionship and help each other in the harder times of their life. .
George's friendship is probably the most prevalent in the novel, directed at most of the characters on the ranch and mostly at Lennie. George always helps Lennie out in all situations, in health, safety, and mental stability. For example, when George and Lennie were walking to the ranch, Lennie stops at a dirty pond and drinks the water. "Lennie!" He said sharply. "Lennie, for gods sakes don't drink so much"-Lennie you gonna be sick like you was last night(3)." This quote shows that George cares for the well being of Lennie and doesn't want Lennie to get sick and maybe become bedridden and die. He wants Lennie to be his friend and does not want to lose him. George told Slim about an incident where he almost lost Lennie because of his stubbornness, and was very regretful. He was in the bunk and was telling Slim about how he used to play tricks on George. "I used to have a hell of a lot of fun with "im. Used to play jokes on "im "cause he was too dumb to know."-Tell you what made me stop that. One day a bunch of guys was standin" around up on the Sacremento River. I Was feelin" pretty smart. I turns to Lennie and says "Jump in." An" he jumps. Couldn't swim a stroke. He damn near drowned before we could get to him. An" he was so damn nice to me for pullin" him out. Clean forgot I told him to jump in. Well, I ain't done nothing like that no more (44)". This incident made George more aware that he was more in control of Lennie then Lennie was of himself. He doesn't do anything like that to Lennie anymore because he's afraid that the next time Lennie will get hurt not only physically, but mentally as well.