Code hero and hero in the novel of mice and men

At the beginning of the 20 century, the North American literature has been
influenced by Ernest Hemingway with his concept of hero and code hero.
Hemingway had created a new type of fictional character. However, there was a
novel that appeared in the same period of time that is called of mice and men of
John Steinbeck, this novel narrates the story about two men that are apparently
friends, Lennie and George. Therefore, taking as Hemingway concept of hero in
the novel of Steinbeck, we notice that the two principal characters in Of mice
and men, Lennie and George, are the best examples to explain the concept of
hero and code hero.

Firstly, Hemingway defined the Code Hero as "a man who lives correctly,
following the ideals of honor, courage and endurance in a world that is
sometimes chaotic, often stressful, and always painful." In relation with the
Steinbecks novel, of mice and men, the code hero and hero are represented in
several character but characters as Lennie and George are more important, we
can affirm that Lennie is the hero and George is the code hero, but why? We
have to go back to the story of the novel.

The story of mice and men begins when George and Lennie prepare to arrive at
a ranch to work to get some money to achieve their purpose of buying a land to
live the all rest of their lives. However, these characters have different
personalities because Lennie is a big and strong man but he is a little silly who
loves to touch soft textured things, and George can be defined by a few distinct
characteristics. He is short-tempered but a loving and devoted friend, whose
frequent protests against life with Lennie never weaken his commitment to
protecting his friend, he is apparently a smart man not like Lennie. Thus,
according to Hemingways definition, Lennie follows to George and he is
manipulated for him, at the point to find the death. Moreover, the character of
George has the characteristic to be manicist with Lennie due to George takes
the decisions and he says what Lennie has to do, how he has to act, to talk with
and how he has to behave; those actions make George as the code hero for
Lennie.
On the other hand, the hero Lennie allows and follows the code hero to be an
acceptable person in the society at that time because the context of the novel
and the period of time has an influence in the development of the story, thus,
Lennie and George have to live in a chaotic context to survive. The great
depression that suffered North America and whole world is reflected in the
Steinbecks novel, thus Lennie accepts and follows the code hero to become
properly behaved.

Nevertheless, returning to the primary consideration of Hemingways concepts,

the code hero could become in a hero too because the code hero could help the
hero or could end with him, thus in the story of Of mice and men, Lennie as
usually gets problems due to his strange mania and the code hero, George,
tries to defend and to avoid that the hero has a fatal ending. For that reason, it
then becomes the duty and the obligation of the Hemingway hero to avoid death
at almost all cost. Life must continue. With Lennies death changes the role and
George become a hero and that moment we confirm that those kind of actions
demonstrate that George was a friend of Lennie, a real demonstration of
friendship.

Finally, the process that suffered those characters reflects the dichotomy of hero
and the transformation that each character has. This Code Hero measures
himself by how well they handle the difficult situations that life throws at him. In
the end the Code Hero will lose because we are all mortal, but the true measure
is how a person faces death, As George did with Lennie by avoiding a tragic
death and becoming the hero of history.