“Got no teeth,” he said. “He’s all stiff with rheumatism. He ain’t no good to you, Candy. An’ he ain’t no good to himself. Why’n’t you shoot him, Candy?”
Chapter 3 · Carlson
Context
Carlson has begun pressuring Candy to shoot his old dog. Standing over the animal and pointing out its physical deterioration, he poses the question as a matter of practical kindness.
Analysis
The triadic listing of bodily failures ('Got no teeth,' 'stiff with rheumatism,' 'no good') applies the same evaluative grid—use-value—to the dog that the ranch applies to its human laborers, and the repetition of 'no good' (twice, in adjacent clauses) drills the criterion into the reader's ear. The construction 'no good to himself' is the lethal innovation: it relocates the judgment of disposability from external utility to internal experience, allowing killing to be reframed as gift. This logic, once articulated, becomes available for Candy to apply to himself and George to apply to Lennie.
How to Use in Essay
Argue that Carlson's phrase 'no good to himself' is the novel's most dangerous piece of moral reasoning—it transforms an external economic verdict into a claim about subjective experience, and Steinbeck tracks how this rhetorical move enables every subsequent act of killing in the text.