...In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, loneliness is a powerful motif. This motif is constantly repeated throughout the story and helps the reader receive Steinbeck's view on isolation. John Steinbeck is saying that loneliness was normal during the Great Depression. As depicted in his novel, it was out of the norm to find two migrant workers travelling together, for everyone was scared of each other and many suffered as a result of being alone for too long. During the Great Depression, it was rare to see two migrant workers travelling together. When the two main characters, George and Lennie, were talking, they were saying that "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family.... With us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us" (Steinbeck 15). George and Lennie were saying that most migrant workers travelled alone and rarely had a companion. Unlike most, George and Lennie had each other...
Words: 709 - Pages: 3
...Of mice and men is a novel written by John Steinbeck, published on 1937. The novel portrays the theme of loneliness throughout the story. The story of mice and men was begun at South Soledad, which means loneliness. The story evolves in a two man namely George Milton and Lennie Small, who displaced migrant ranch workers. They move from one place to another in searching for a new job opportunities. Before their arrival in Soledad, however, Lennie and George lived and worked in Weed, California, but fled after the authorities there accused Lennie of attempted rape. Physically, Lennie and George differ as much as night and day. George is small in stature but quick-witted and sharp. What George lacks in height Lennie makes up for, but he lacks...
Words: 505 - Pages: 3
...Loneliness in “Of Mice and Men” Friends are needed in a person’s life for emotional stability whom without would lead to a life of loneliness and solitude. In the novel, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, the characters Crooks, Candy and Curly’s wife exhibit a form of loneliness. They are driven to George and Lennie’s friendship because they lack support and that emotional stability in their own lives."A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't matter no difference who the guy is, longs he with you. I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an he gets sick" (Steinbeck, 13). Throughout his novel, Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck shows that victims of isolation crave to fulfill a companionship to fill in that void of loneliness. Firstly, Crooks, a handicapped black man, experiences isolation because of his race and disability and seeks to be a part of someone’s life. Crooks is physically separated from the other men as he has his own room in the barn and has limited social contact because he tends the horses. Crooks’s loneliness forces him to translucently share his bottled thoughts to Lennie when he comes into his room, and asks to be a part of the dream George and Lennie share, "...If you...guys would want a hand to work for nothing--just his keep, why I'd come an' lend a hand..." (Steinbeck 88). This shows that Crooks wants to be engaged with other people in his life despite his inability to see beyond the prejudice and discrimination he has always experienced. Secondly, the character...
Words: 721 - Pages: 3
...One theme in the novel “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck is loneliness. Many people would think that Lennie is the loneliest but George is in fact the loneliest character. In the novel there are two best friends Lennie and George who escape the city of Weed because Lennie, a man with a mental impairment, was accused of raping a woman when all he wanted to do was feel her dress. As they walk they talk about their dream of one day having enough money to buy some land and they would a small vegetable patch and rabbit hutch. Along the way Lennie ends up killing a puppy from bouncing it too hard and a man’s wife because he panicked and accidentally snapped her neck. In the end he ends up dying for the better of George. George is the loneliest...
Words: 667 - Pages: 3
...of living in isolation. Throughout the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck the characters, Crooks, George, and Curley’s Wife all portray loneliness. The Author depicts that the lack of friendship or loneliness negatively affects the individuals. Racial discrimination caused an enormous social barrier which lead to the segregation of the African American farm worker, Crooks. Given no rights, Crooks faces many ethnic threats and is treated very poorly. "S'pose you didn't have nobody. S'pose you couldn't go into the bunk house and play rummy 'cause you was black. How'd you like that? S'pose you had to sit out here an' read books. Sure you could play horseshoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain't no good. 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" (80). Crooks states that he has nobody there for him, no one to socialize with, and is not permitted to play card games because of his skin colour. This quote represents the consuming nature loneliness has on an individual as Crooks explains he needs somebody to keep him company, and prevent him from becoming sick. When Crooks contributes his opinion on George and Lennie’s dream of owning a farm, he shows that loneliness has destroyed his hope for a better life, even after death. "I seen hundreds of men come by on the road an' on the ranches, with their...
Words: 955 - Pages: 4
...Teresa once said, “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.” In John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, we see that loneliness was an issue even in the era of George and Lennie. At different parts throughout the story, Crooks, Candy, and Curley’s wife all feel lonely and have to face different types of loneliness. Throughout the book, Steinbeck tells us about a somewhat disabled, black man, named Crooks, and shows us his loneliness in the form of discrimination. Crooks shows this loneliness on page 72 by saying,”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 a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.” Crooks, the stable buck, spends his time sitting alone in the stable. Crooks is discriminated, and...
Words: 591 - Pages: 3
...Written by John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men is an American literature book set in the era of the Great Depression. Mainly revolving around the characters George and Lennie, it explores themes such as the American Dream. On the other hand, it expresses this theme through the loneliest of characters. According to Paul Tillich, “loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone.” Everyone has experienced the feeling of being lonely in life, yet who is the loneliest character in Of Mice and Men? Out of all the characters, Crooks is the loneliest because he is constantly discriminated against, forcefully isolated, and not respected. To begin with, Crooks is the loneliest character in Of Mice and Men because...
Words: 633 - Pages: 3
...Loneliness is very common in society, some people choose not to be friends with others because of their race , skin color, looks and many other and with that , loneliness in this society just keep increasing each and every day, this feeling can affect people’s mind set to the negative way and impact on their decisions. In the book Of Mice and Men , loneliness is shown very often by many of the characters but the ones who most express loneliness in this novel are Lennie, Curley’s wife and Crooks, it affects their dreams and impact their decisions, it affects their dreams because they have nobody to help them achieve their goals. Curley’s wife only had one dream which she couldn’t reach for having thoughts that maybe wasn’t even true, she...
Words: 971 - Pages: 4
...From of John Donne’s most popular poems states, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…”. One of the many themes in Of Mice and Men that still relates to society today is that at some point everyone has felt isolated or lonely. The theme of loneliness and isolation is most noticeably present in Candy, Crooks, and Curley's wife. For example, sometimes people find themselves feeling lonesome and excluded from a group because of their minority status. Crooks was lonely because, he was always ostracized from the ranchworks because he was African-American. “ A guy needs somebody-to be near him,” he whined. A guy goes nuts if he aint got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the the guy is, long’s he’s with you. I tell ya,” he cried, “I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick,” (Steinbeck 72). Last year the National Review wrote an article about how college students were feeling isolated at school because of their race. One Muslim student, said that they felt marginalized, left out, and disregarded in class and on campus by virtue of their minority status(Torres 2). Today, there are laws against discrimination yet, people are still...
Words: 547 - Pages: 3
...At one point or another, everybody has felt or been lonely in their life. In the short story Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, every character has felt alone, even George and Lennie. Even though these two had each other, they had felt lonely, or even had the fear of being lonely. All the guys on the farm had each other and they were still lonely. Sometimes even the best of two people have to be broken, and they do feel lonely after. You could have the best relationship with someone, but at some point in your life there was a bit of loneliness. Just because you have friends or a wife, you can still feel alone and be alone, or even have the fear of being alone. Curley had a wife and they had both felt alone. Like, when Lennie had George, everybody was teling him that George might not come back. He was so scared of losing him, he had the fear of being alone. On page 71 Lennie said “‘George won’t do nothing like that.’ ‘George is careful. He won’t get hurt’”...
Words: 654 - Pages: 3
...Losing Your Only Friend: Conformations of Loneliness In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck displays a grim but honest truth about life. Steinbeck’s novel tells of two men: George Milton, a small and quick man; Lennie Small, an enormous man with incredible strength while behaving and thinking as a young child. The two men have been traveling together as laborers and have formed a unique father-and-son like bond. After getting jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley , George and Lennie have aspirations to accumulate enough money to fulfill their dreams of “ living off the fatta the lan” but encounter an unfortunate circumstance which prevents them from doing so. Throughout their journey, the main character, George developed from taking Lennie’s presence for granted to truly understanding the pain of loneliness proving friendship is only a temporary distraction from inevitable loneliness. Although subtle, George changed his tone from the beginning of the book to the end, from having been relaxed confining into a friend to being...
Words: 825 - Pages: 4
...Loneliness plays a huge role in George and Lennie's life's like how without it George wouldn’t go through the trouble to live with Lennie and then there wouldn’t be a story. In the book, Of Mice and Men, that John Steinbeck wrote, the two loners travel from one ranch to another doing back breaking labor just trying to make a very feeble living. The guys have to deal with loneliness in some type of way everyday even though they still have each other, and before they get to fulfill their dreams it causes George to go insane and shoot Lennie. Loneliness caused a lot of trouble with Lennie because he always got into trouble trying to be friendly. Lennie got very lonely only being able to talk to George every day. So, he decided to catch a mouse....
Words: 332 - Pages: 2
...In “Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck, it’s apparent that Steinbeck tries to explain what it is to be human. A theme of the book is displayed through the nature of loneliness using different characters from the story. Individuals come and leaves. Yet deep inside them, they want to have a place called “home”. With warmth and a place they can go back to. The author suggests that people who are different people don’t go well with each other, he used characters like Crooks, George, Lennie, and Curley’s wife to have a profound sense of loneliness and isolation. One of the character, Crooks is lonely and he desperately need someone to talk to. In chapter 4, Crooks said, “A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody...I tell ya a guys gets too lonely an’ he gets sick”(Steinbeck 72). When Crooks meets Lennie, he is envy that Lennie have George, while he have...
Words: 411 - Pages: 2
...wife, and multiple characters undergoing major inconveniences for friendship it openly depicts the need for companionship in his novel, "Of Mice and Men". The primary way that Steinbeck portrays loneliness and the need for companionship, is through the articulation of the character Crooks. Initially, this can be viewed when Crooks expresses that he feels unheard and that nobody listens...
Words: 972 - Pages: 4
...At the time of the Great Depression the U.S created a repatriation program that deported people of mexican descent, 400,000 were repatriated, sometimes against their will. In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men, there are many overarching themes, these themes help the author show the hard times of the Great Depression. One such theme would be the prevalence of loneliness in many of the characters. Another theme would be the discrimination against a number of characters, in the different forms such as sexism and racism. Lastly, many dreams in the novel go unfulfilled leaving many characters with the weight of failure. Throughout the Great Depression human compassion was as rare as a job, this led to widespread loneliness, that, in turn, is apparent...
Words: 1042 - Pages: 5
