Loneliness In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

“Language…has created the word ‘loneliness’ to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the glory of being alone.” (Paul Tillich) This quote narrates the novel, “Of Mice and Men”, by John Steinbeck. In the first chapter, Steinbeck presents the idea of loneliness and men who work on ranches with no point in life. Steinbeck utilizes this setting to demonstrate these thoughts. The novel “Of Mice and Men”, demonstrates loneliness and isolation in the characters Candy, Crooks, and Curley's wife.

Of Mice And Men “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place.” In the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, one of the main themes is loneliness. It’s is shown through the book in many of the characters.

“People think I’m odd. So I know how it feels to be different, and I know how lonely that can be”-Belle Although this is a quote from Belle in Beauty in the Beast, this also relates to many characters in the novel Of Mice and Men because the outcasts are usually the people that endure loneliness. Of Mice and Men is about two migrant workers, George and Lennie, that attain work anywhere they can. They dream of a place where they can live on their own, but when an event happens it causes their dreams to be crushed.

“Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world” (Steinbeck 13). Loneliness affects people in different ways. Some people go out of their way to get attention from others, and others isolate themselves. In the story Of Mice and Men, some of the people living on the ranch are struggling with loneliness themselves. Loneliness affects characters in Of Mice and Men through Crooks isolating himself from others, Curley’s wife flirting with other men for attention, and Lennie worrying about George leaving him to take care of himself alone.

In the book of Mice and Men, Steinbeck portrays loneliness in many ways such as asking for attention, paying for attention, or forcing it. The characters that I chose to show how Steinbeck’s shows us how loneliness made an impact on the people in the time are Curley’s Wife, slim, and Curley. These 3 characters aren’t the main characters, but to me they show some of the most severe cases of loneliness. In this time period women just married whoever was there and willing.

Loneliness plays a big part in Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Many of the people at the ranch are there because of loneliness. Candy, Crooks, and Curley’s wife are examples of very lonely people in this story. Even though most of the characters are pursuing a dream of being happy and prosperous, they know that it most likely will not happen which gives a sense of loneliness.

The smiles you spot on faces aren't always real, have you noticed? In the book Of Mice and Men, the author John Steinbeck uses loneliness to reveal how the characters act on the outside but their differences on the inside. In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck conveys Crooks and Curley's Wife extensive sensation of loneliness from shattered futures to unfaithfulness. Curley's Wife, a woman who just wanted to live her life and dream on, sadly gets stuck with a jealous and possessive husband. Curley's wife who is stuck on a ranch 24/7 without any friends, gets lonely.

Loneliness is a very prevalent theme in Of Mice and Men, it basically influences every character’s decision in the novel . Three characters are affected more than others, those characters are George and Lennie by having them stay together, Curley's wife by getting her killed, and Crooks the stable buck by making him have no dreams and think that no dreams come true. Loneliness makes George and Lennie stay together. This is important because it shows what the fear of loneliness will make the characters do, The fear of loneliness is so great for George ,that he would rather travel with a person who has a mental disability than to be alone .George even says, “When I think of the swell time I could have without you I go nuts” (Steinbeck 12).

“Loneliness- sadness because one has no friends or company.” In Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, loneliness is a main characteristic of the characters set in this point of of time. Throughout the story about the Great Depression, there are multiple main themes. One of themes that occurred within many of the characters was loneliness. Of Mice and Men uses each character a different way to portray the fact that many people during the Great Depression were more or less lonely.

We all struggle with something. George, Curley's wife and Crooks struggle with loneliness and they all struggle in different ways. Of mice and men is a novel around the time of the great depression. The two main characters George and lennie look for work. Lennie has no time to himself so in that aspect he is lonely.

A man of the name William Faulkner once said, “Dreams only have one owner at a time. That’s why dreamers are so lonely.” In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, characters experience hardships; some more than others. Despite their hardships, the characters go on with living their everyday lives with different challenges everyday. Of Mice and Men expresses many thoughts and emotions about dreams, loneliness, and racism that is shown by many characters in a variety of ways throughout the novel.

Loneliness, an emotion that can affect someone very deeply. But people do not understand How many different things that loneliness could effect in an individual's life. In the book of mice and men john steinbeck develops the idea that loneliness causes anger, sadness, and uneasiness which is demonstrated by the characters of curley,candy, and crooks interactions with the individuals around them demonstrate how loneliness can cause people to act unhappily. Curley is aggressive because he is worried that his wife will leave him and he will be left alone. Curley's attitude is largely attributed to his constant fear of losing his wife, which causes him to walk around and be angry all the time looking for his

“Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love.” This is an excellent quote from John Steinbeck, the author of “Of Mice and Men,” that fully describes the book entirely. “Of Mice and Men” is a touching story about two men, George and Lennie, and their travels together on a long journey towards a lifelong dream that they share. They find work on a small ranch and quickly, within the span of a few days, make friends and enemies as well as see how the Great Depression changes humans into soldiers and into heartless people, along with kind but lonely souls.

Loneliness is an emotion that stems from its opposite, a relationship. The strongest emotions can be found when one feels wronged or betrayed, such is the how a relationship and loneliness can be. Steinbeck creates a complex emotion in the way he applies loneliness to his characters. Steinbeck’s character’s loneliness is associated with a relationship they are in or were in previously, and is an underlying emotion in their decisions. Multiple characters have experienced drastic changes at the hands of loneliness.

In the novel Of Mice and Men, the author, John Steinbeck, develops the theme of loneliness through the crushed dreams of characters in the book who yearned for a better life than the one which they currently lived. The novel is based on the period of the Great Depression, 1930s America, and focuses on real life circumstances in that time. Two people who are migrant ranch workers named Lennie Smalls and George Milton hold a dream in their minds of one day, having the convenience of buying a piece of land to produce their own food through agriculture and not have to do it as work, for a person, to get money and not even be able to touch what they helped to produce from the land. Their dream then subsides when the harsh bitterness of reality forces them to make the utmost life-changing decision which shatters their dream to unfixable shards. The theme of loneliness is also developed through the characters Curley’s Wife, Candy and Crooks who, although in different ways, all share the fact that their dreams have been trampled over.