Of Mice and Men

Loneliness

Throughout the novel, Of Mice and Men (by John Steinbeck), loneliness is the major underlying theme of the novel. You could almost say that the book has ‘hormonal’ up’s and down’s. Most of the characters are very lonely because they have no family. However, George and Lennie are the contradiction to this. George and Lennie’s bond towards each other are so- strong that you can almost see it as you are reading the book. Candy the old crippled man wants to be part of George and Lennie’s dream to own a farm and “live off the fatta the land”. Curley and his dog are like the metaphor in the book for George and Lennie. Candy has to take care of his dog and George of Lennie. The other two characters in the novel that are apart of the overall theme of loneliness are crooks the crippled stable buck and Curley’s wife the flirtatious city girl. Crook’s fits in to the loneliness theme because he is black. During this time in history, there was very little racial empathy. So being black means that he is isolated from everyone else at the ranch. Speaking of isolation, curley’s wife feels very isolated because her husband, Curley, doesn’t trust her at all, however, because Curley is so strict and concerned about her flirting with other guys it almost fuels her desire to cause trouble.

The dream of owning a farm and “living off the fatta the land” originally started as a story just to keep Lennie quiet but because of Lennie constantly asking George to tell him the story kept the dream alive. One time in the bunkhouse, George was re -telling this story when candy overheard it. Candy fears that because he is getting old and has one crippled hand that any day soon he is going to be asked to leave. Therefore, when he is asked to leave he will not have anywhere to go or anyone to go to. This would be frightening for him so that is why he wants to be part of their dream so badly. It was candy’s addition to George and Lennie’s dream that made it all happen. They needed to raise $600 for the farm and candy had the majority of the money. At this time, they were all excited because the dream was becoming a reality. Despite their enormous friendship, if they were to lose each other they would be just like one of the other lonely guys with “no one that gives a damn about.” I believe that that is their greatest fear of all time, losing their friendship. However, George sometimes feels as though taking care of Lennie as a chore because Lennie can be a real handful. The strong friendship between George and Lennie is definitely a good thing however because they are the only two guys who share that it makes some of the other guys working at the ranch jealous. Crooks is one of these people who are jealous of their friendship.

When Lennie and crooks first met, all of the other men went into town and crooks did exactly what George did to Lennie when he first met him, take advantage of his mental state. For the reason that crooks is jealous of their friendship crooks tried to persuade Lennie into thinking that George was not going to come back from own that day. In doing this Lennie became angry thinking that something had happened to George. After just breaking curley’s hand a few days before crooks became really scared of Lennie and tried his method of persuasion from another angle. Crooks tried to persuade Lennie into thinking that if George didn’t come back from town that day what was he going to do with himself because he relies a lot on George to take care of him. This puts him in a position of authority. In places him in a position where he can have control over a ‘white man’ so to speak. In addition, because he has probably never had such sort of power that it would be overwhelming after all those years being a stable buck isolated from other just because of his colour. He also believes that “a man goes nuts if he ain’t got no one to talk to.”

Curley’s wife is another character that would experience this type of isolation, as loneliness. She is a flirty city girl who is always getting herself into trouble with Curley because she flirts with the other men on the ranch. Curley is a lightweight boxer who does not like big guys just because