The Last Kindness
The motion: “George's final act is an act of love.”
Your opponent: John Steinbeck · Course: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) · Assessment objectives: AO1, AO4
Hold that position for a whole debate while the man who wrote it takes it apart.
What you are asked to argue
You defend the motion. You may not switch sides when it becomes difficult — that is the format.
What the specification expects you to bring
- Candy's dog and the parallel Steinbeck constructs
- Curley's intentions for Lennie and what the alternative was
- Slim's judgement at the end
- Attitudes to disability in 1930s America and the institutions available
- The final retelling of the dream during the shooting
Positions that are defensible
Disagreeing with the figure is not an error. Any of these can score full marks if argued well:
- That it is mercy and destruction at once, and the novella refuses to separate them
- That it is George choosing his own freedom, and the novella knows it
- That the parallel with Candy's dog condemns the act by making it routine
Common misconceptions this debate is built to expose
- Wrong: Slim says it had to be done, so the novella endorses it.
The correction: Slim is a character, and the novella's most respected one — but Candy's regret about his dog sits in the same book, and it says the opposite.
What passing it proves
One position held across every round, narrowed and strengthened rather than abandoned, with the strongest counter-evidence met head-on.
Why them?
Read the life before you argue with it — the case you are about to meet was built by a real person, over a real career:
- The life of John Steinbeck — Chronicler of the Dispossessed · Novelist · 1902–1968
Prepare for this debate → — the motion, the rounds and the marking descriptors, then the debate itself. Free, no account needed.