Lennie cannot be held entirely responsible for this incident. Curly was the one who started making him lose his mind in the first place. When you fight a big guy like Lennie, you win anyway. If you win, everyone will congratulate you and if you lose, they will feel sorry for you. Curly started picking on Lennie in the first place because he was laughing when Candy said, "Hands full of Vaseline" (62) in a disgusted way. Because Curly had an angry personality, he would quickly become enraged. His eyes moved past Candy and towards Lennie, the only person in the room he could win against. Curly bluntly asked Lennie what was so funny and started an argument. Before you knew it, Curly was beating the daylights out of Lennie. When Lennie cried out for George's help, he shouted, "Bring him, Lennie." Don’t let him do it” (62). George encouraged Lennie to stand up for himself and that's exactly what he did. Lennie held on to Curley's fist and wouldn't let go. George kept encouraging Lennie to stick it out. When it went too far, the men tried to convince Lennie to let go of Curley's fist, but he wouldn't bother. George slapped him again and again until he finally saw Curly's white, shrunken face which he left