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Loneliness In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Decent Essays

Loneliness, a feeling of sadness because one has no friends or company, a feeling of depression and solitude. A theme which Steinbeck used many times throughout the novella. Steinbeck used these techniques to portray many of his characters in his book, of Mice and Men. Curley’s wife, crooks, and candy were mainly the three which had expressed loneliness several times in the story. Everybody does tend to get lonely once in a while but in this case Steinbeck highlights life on the ranch in the early 1930’s. The depression era where people are shown to be driven to escape that loneliness feeling and find friendship. Steinbeck created two main characters (George and Lennie) to which I believe, was to mock and confuse the other character and to …show more content…

Crook and Curley’s wife are also the two, whose names aren’t mentioned in the novel. Why weren’t their names mentioned? The loneliness of crook was caused by him being “black”, and being when it was set there was much racism in the time. Since he was black he didn’t really socialize with the other white man on the ranch. Steinbeck had shown that loneliness had drove crooks bitter using his anger as a defence mechanism. When Lennie first accoutres crook, he wasn’t very antagonistic. “Well, go see your pup, then. Don’t come in a place where you’re not wanted” (pg.100). Said the crook. It showed that he was very uncertain and cautious as from the years of racism that crooks endured, he learned not to associate with the white people. And to display that he only needs himself as he’s a strong men. As Lennie starts interacting with the crook more he seemed to be more open. “Come on in and set a while; long as you won’t get out and leave me alone, you might as well set down.” (pg.101) his tone was a little friendlier. The crook portray that he does actually want company and loves people talking to him. However, in the end he was born black. So naturally he was born lonely, which leads us to empathise for him even

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