Cruel or Kind?

In the novel Of Mice and Men, we could see that the characters were not always cruel to each other. For instance, George may sometimes say that Lennie is always stupid, making a cruel comment about him. But on the other hand, he wasn’t really trying to be cruel. Instead, he was trying to say that he needs help and he can take care of Lennie. We could see the kindness coming out of George’s cruel words when he took really good care of Lennie. He was always trying to protect him and tell him what he should do for his own benefit. There aren’t really any motivations for George to take good care of Lennie except that Lennie’s aunt had told him before to take care of him well. Besides that, George was just trying to be a good person and help him due to his lack of ability instead of trying to bully and make fun of him all the time. I don’t see a mixture of both cruelty and kindness inside the heart of George despite the cruel comments he had make on Lennie. Sometimes, those cruel comments might even be for Lennie’s own benefit and try to protect him by telling other people he is dumb.