Loneliness In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

One of the characters Curley’s wife temps is Lennie. George repeatedly tells Lennie not to associate with Curley’s wife when he says, “Don’t you even take a look at that bitch. I don’t care what she says and what she does. I seen ‘em poison before, but I never seen no pieces of jail bait worse than her. You leave her be.”(32)

One of the main motifs that is throughout the book Of Mice and Men is loneliness. Throughout the book, the reader meets some interesting characters. These characters are interesting because they express their loneliness and their isolation. These characters embody the motif and show the reader examples of this isolation. Some of these characters are Candy, Crooks, and Curley’s wife.

Multiple characters in the book Of Mice and Men support the theme of loneliness. To begin with, Crooks, a black stable hand, demonstrates loneliness. During his bitter conversation with Lennie Small(a ranch hand) in the barn, Crooks cries, “I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick”(72). You can furthermore tell that Crooks is lonely, because when Candy enters the barn for the first time “It was difficult for Crooks to conceal his pleasure with anger”(75), which shows that Crooks is yearning for company.

Crook’s longing to belong is demonstrated when Lennie is finally allowed into Crooks’ room. Crooks, who is also used to being bullied and teased by the other men, takes advantage of Lennie, and attempts to gain dominance over him by teasing and taunting him as an outlet for his own frustration at not being accepted.

Loneliness is something that many people have to go through in their live. The people who have to go encounter this pain can feel depressed and isolated. In Of Mice and Men there are three main characters that exemplify this Curley’s wife, Candy, and Crooks. Curley’s wife because is a victim of this because no one wants to talk to her, Candy’s old so people keep away from him, and Crooks is a different skin color, which makes people discriminate against him.

’A guy needs somebody – to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick’”

Crooks likes the other men to think he is very secure and values about his privacy, but it shows that in he would rather be in the bunkhouse hanging out with all of the other men. Curley’s wife makes it very clear that she doesn’t love Curley and that she regrets their unhealthy marriage, “ ‘I don’t like Curley. He ain’t a nice fellow.’ “(Steinbeck 89). Lennie is always lonely because he likes to pet soft things but pets them too hard and kills them.

“I ain’t wanted in the bunkhouse, and you ain’t wanted in my room.” Because Lennie doesn’t fully understand the situation of segregation, Crooks looks to him to be a friend because Lennie does not seem to care that Crooks’ color, he tries to make Lennie understand his situation, how lonely he gets. “I tell ya a guy gets too lonely, an’ he gets sick.” When Candy brings up the idea of the farm to Crooks, caught up in the fantasy, he also offers to help just to get off the farm he currently works on. However, when hit with reality by Curleys’ wife, Crooks dream dies and he plays it off like he never wanted it. “I didn’ mean it.

Curley’s wife is so desperate to talk to another human being (other then her husband) that she goes to Lennie for attention. She knows that she can manipulate Lennie into talk to her easily and can change the way he thinks about her by just talking and flirting with him, for example when she let him touch her hair she knows that Lennie like soft things so she let Lennie touch her hair. Just like Curley's wife Crooks seems to alway be lonely he lives in the barn with the animals by himself because his skin colour : “S’pose you couldn’t go into the bunkhouse and play rummy ‘cause you was black. How’d you like that?...”

Hadrian Text in green is subject to deletion/change How does Steinbeck present the theme of loneliness in Of Mice and Men? This essay will explore the theme of loneliness and isolation in John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men; the two characters from the book which I have decided to analyse are: Candy, an old, handicapped swamper residing with his equally old dog and Crooks, a disabled stable-buck and isolated victim of prejudice. Of Mice and Men— published in 1937— details the experience of George and Lennie, two travelling ranch workers following the American Dream in the year 1930, during The Great Depression.

Steinbeck reveals that the attitude towards old/disabled people on the farm is one of uselessness. Once someone or something is no longer physically useful it should be gone or killed. In this case, in the book Of Mice and Men, Candy, the swamper, has an old dog who he has had for all the pups life. Other than Candy’s love for the dog, there is no reason for the dog to be on the ranch due to its old age and other disabilities. In addition, the dog is smelly and his scent hangs around in the bunkhouse even after he has left the room. So, Carlson, one of the men working on the ranch, offers to kill Candy’s dog for him. Carlson said to Candy that the dog “aint no good to you...An’ he aint no good to himself” (Steinbeck 49). Carlson used those

It is this aggression and suspicion that leads to him isolating himself. Furthermore, the style of ranch life leads to the men in a more permanent position (and consequently being superior on the “hierarchy”)on the ranch being isolated. Men such as Curley and Slim have clearly spent a lot of time on the ranch, and therefore will not be able to make any long lasting friends. Slim himself tells George that the men “just come in and get their bunk and work a month, and then they quit and go

John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men is set in Salinas Valley, California in the late 1930s, on a ranch “a few miles south of Soledad.” In Spanish, Soledad, the town’s name, means solitude, “implying both a physical isolation and a psychological loneliness” (Zeitler). There is a strong presence of loneliness throughout the novel, and all the characters, not just George and Lennie, fight against their isolation however they can. George and Lennie are part of the agricultural working class of California during the Great Depression; they are wandering laborers, looking for any temporary job and an occasional wage. According to literary critic Kevin Attell, “as George suggests, the hardships of that life have primarily to do with solitude and

Finally, Candy feels useless, making him feel as if he is no longer needed in the world. These characters ultimately always feel lonely because they had no one to look after them, and they all contribute to the theme of loneliness in the novella. Although they sometimes feel lonely, by taking the path of staying together while working, George and Lennie are much different than these migrant workers. They are dreamers with unbroken spirits, always there to lift each other up. They constantly remind each other that they are different from the other workers that lived their life without hope.

All through the novel, Steinbeck emphasizes the effects of loneliness, predominantly through the ranch swamper,Candy, who suffers as a victim of ageism. Candy's emotional attachment to the dog blinds him from realizing the dog's incapability and worthlessness. After Slim agrees to rid the dog of its suffering, Candy understands what Carlson and the guys are trying to say. The author writes,“ I'll put the old devil out of his misery right now and get it over with. Ain't nothing left for him.