My Understandings

Who knows what Lennie and George are. No, I don't mean what species they are, or even what their characteristics and personality traits are. I mean based on how they act towards each other, what can their relationship be defined as; what should their relationship be defined as? In today's world, their relationship would be considered unhealthy and even abusive to some extent. George treats Lennie, who seems to have some sort of mental disorder, with close to no respect and uses him just so George can get a job easier. While in the modern world that would be considered an awful thing to do, more or less socially unacceptable, back in the 1930's it was almost a common thing to do.

Mental disorders such as autism weren't well understood and so the majority of the population didn't know how to treat them and how they would behave or respond. I'm certainly not saying it was the right thing to do, but given the time period it would have been considered socially acceptable to treat mentally ill people the way George treats Lennie. George doesn't understand what exactly is wrong with Lennie, so he doesn't know how to treat him. And since Lennie probably doesn't even realize that there is anything wrong with him, he can't tell George how to treat him. It's a paradox of misunderstanding and ignorance between both of them, and it would stay that way, metal disorder vs knowledge of mental disorders, until doctors can figure out how to diagnose others.