Loneliness in Of Mice and Men Essay

The Characters that present Loneliness in the novel 'Of Mice and Men'

In the Novel of Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, we can read the story of people and the loneliness they experience through out the novel. The book is about lonely farm workers. They all have different reasons for being lonely, like, their age, race, sex. The main characters are George and Lennie. They are a couple of poor farm workers. Lennie is a man who has mental problems, he is kind of alone because his mum died. The other character is George. He has to take care of George. He is alone because being with Lennie has isolated him from everyone else around him. The relationship that George and Lennie have is a bit odd. Since George is the smart one he is the boss out of the pair.

Another character, who I think represents loneliness, in the story is Candy. He is an old man who doesnt have a hand because he had an accident. He doesnt do much anymore, except tend to his old and disabled dog. His dog is his only true friend and is was attached to it. His future doesnt look very bright; he is heading towards being an old and lonely man with out anyone to take care of him. He is scared of the fact that they are going to send him away just like they did to his dog. But he is trying to avoid this future by joining George and Lennie in their quest to own their own ranch. By doing such a thing he will no longer have to be alone and will not feel worthless.

While Candy is an odd one out because of his age, Crook is an odd one out because of his race. He is an African American who tends the stable. He has become an over protective person. He uses this to keep people from him. He is treated in a bad way, he lives away from everyone else and his accommodation isn't very good either. He thinks that people are going to exclude him so he is one step ahead of them he puts on this defensive attitude and spends all his time alone. This is reason that i believe why he is so bitter towards people.

While Curleys wife is treated a lot better than Crook, she may not be that different from him. She is married to Curley. She is supposed to be a pretty girl. And since she is married to an ill tempered little man, he doesnt let anyone even look at her. She doesnt like him very much because of that reason. This leads to her lonely life of boredom, which makes her act out in a not so respectful way. She is always flirting with the men in the ranch. At the end of the novel her loneliness causes her to start being all flirty with Lennie, which then gets her killed as he feels she is getting to close to his rabbit.

The incident in the barn shows two lonely people coming together with one thing in common, their loneliness. They meet up because they both need somebody to talk to, even though it lead to total disaster. This affects the relationships between George and Lennie. The awful incident that follows makes George come together with Lennie and has to take care of him. They bond for the last time telling stories of how life could have been if everything had gone as planned. I see the same relationship that Candy had with his dog in the relationship of George and Lennie. And so does Candy. He realizes that he should have put his own dog to sleep instead of someone else doing it.