Consider the theme of loneliness in 'Of Mice and Men'. How does it affect the friendships and relationships in the novel?
Consider the theme of loneliness in 'Of Mice and Men'. How does it affect the friendships and relationships in the novel?
This novel that was written by John Steinbeck which was set in the 1930s in Salinas Soledad which is in California.
The novel consists of many historical factors which have affected the characters in this novel and one of them includes "the great depression" Which leads the novels inspiration for the famous writer John Steinbeck which he mainly based on his own experience. In those days people travelled a lot differently to how we travel now.
In those days migrant workers travelled extravagant distances looking for a job. There are many different themes in which are based throughout the whole book, such as loneliness, happiness, nature, dreams and reality: - Which even lead to catastrophe.
Many of the people in this novel have very lonely lives mainly because they are migrant workers and as we know they don't have time to make any friends or have any time to spend with their families. There are many characters that are lonely due to age, sex, and race. Two good examples would be Candy because of his age and Crooks because of his race.
This novel consists of two main characters George and Lennie, who are an anomalous pair of migrant workers that look after each other. They are completely the reverse of each other.
George is the one who has the communicative face and thinks of all of their problems and ideas and tells the other one what to do. Being like this all of the time, in what ever the story it is, always pictures that you would be the small quick one with sharp features.
Lennie is the guy that is tall and always does what he is told and has an ill-defined, solid, and powerful body and does not know his own strength. Steinbeck describes him as the one with no shape in his face and his body. Lennie drags his feet when he walks and acts like an animal. In the descriptions of these two men their appearance is completely different. George dresses neat and tidy, while Lennie dresses very scruffy.
Just by the description of George and Lennie, you can clearly see that Lennie is the child out of the two men, as you can tell how he talks and acts around George and throughout the whole book. Being a man Lennie lacks a lot of language, which I think that he never attended a lot of school. Examples "look George, look what I done!" this is immature language. This kind of behaviour makes George the father type figure, so he would be the defender.
John Steinbeck relates to Lennie, in the theme of nature, by ...
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Just by the description of George and Lennie, you can clearly see that Lennie is the child out of the two men, as you can tell how he talks and acts around George and throughout the whole book. Being a man Lennie lacks a lot of language, which I think that he never attended a lot of school. Examples "look George, look what I done!" this is immature language. This kind of behaviour makes George the father type figure, so he would be the defender.
John Steinbeck relates to Lennie, in the theme of nature, by describing his walk, and some of the things he does in relation to the animals like the way he drinks from the lake as Steinbeck describes him as a horse that puts its whole head into the water and slurps. This links in to the theme of natures, because of the use of animal descriptions that Steinbeck uses throughout the book, which is very important to this novel because in the beginning of the book, Nature was introduced straight away. Steinbeck's describes the surroundings in such detail, that he uses a whole page to describe the forest (which is in the beginning of the book) which gives the readers a good imaginative view of what Steinbeck is writing.
George and Lennie have an abnormal relationship. They are two friends, one needs the other more .George often gets very frustrated towards Lennie, which also shows that George cares. George loves Lennie very much and will always be a friend to him and so does Lennie. Lennie could not live without him because George does everything for him. Between George and Lennie, George is the one that is mainly in control, he cooks, finds them jobs finds them a place to sleep and because of this, they always travel together, where one goes, the other one follows like a duck and her ducklings.
George travels with Lennie because Lennie would not be able to survive on his own. These two men share the same dreams but George knows in reality, it is not going to happen.
Later on in the story Candy has now been introduced to the book as the old swapper. He is tall, stooped shoulders and has white whiskers. When you first see him, he is very friendly, although he is a little weary of newcomers. His only friend is his dog that he has had since he was a little boy which symbolises that he is very lonely which refers to the theme of loneliness. When he gets to know people, he begins to trust them; he opens up and strikes a conversation with his new friends just as he did with Lennie. A little further on in the story as they become very close together and even share each others dream. In the future he looses both his dog and Lennie and can't really prevent Lennie's death but tries to prevent his dog's death, but this fails. This shatters Candy's dreams because he cannot share his dream with his long companion.
In Chapter 4, Crooks is introduced. He is the only coloured (black) person on the ranch and this is where the theme of loneliness comes into play. Crooks is a stable buck. He has a crooked spine, and his eyes lay deep in his head, he is lined with deep black wrinkles and has thin tightened lips. Again relating to the theme of loneliness, Crooks lives by himself in a shed because he is the only Black man, this is why he can afford to leave all of his belongings lying around. He has got his own collection of items like books, shoes and his own copy for the California civil code which indicates that he knows his rights and does not want to be taken advantage of. Eventually Crooks and Lennie are talking about if Lennie could live without George and about crook's childhood explaining why his father never let him play with other kids and why he is so lonely. When he is speaking with Lennie about his childhood, he is speaking like it is still happening or it has recently happened. This is a very similar story to his life at that present time. Being the only coloured man, Crooks is treated as an outcast, as racism was very high in those days which forces him to spend his time reading while the others are playing card games. Crooks becomes very bitter due to the fact that everyone ill treats him which makes him feel hurt.
In the next chapter Curley is introduced to the story. He is the boss's son, he has a wife, she has dark hair that reaches down to her shoulders, her eyes are quiet close together and has pink small lips with very pale skin. The book does not mention anything about her name which suggests that she does not know who her parents are and does not have an identity. She behaves like she is not Curley's wife and that she is single so she flirts with a lot of the men behind curly's back. She would say things like "now that we're alone what do you want to do". To try and tempt the man. In doing this, all the men try as hard as they can to stay away from her because they know that she is trouble and know how Curley feels about his wife.
Curley's wife does this because she wants attention, again, related to the theme of loneliness. All the farmers speak really bad of her because of her being flirtatious they also are frightened to talk to her because they fear Curley, and he would think that something is going on; plus he has the authority to get them fired or to shoot them. She married Curly to get some sort of status and to have an identity but she never liked him anyway. When she describes her life on the ranch, she says that her life is boring, that no one pays any attention to her and that she gets treated like a little girl.
Curley's wife often dreams about herself becoming an actress. At the end of the novel, her loneliness causes Lennie's death.
Before Lennie's death, Curley's wife and Lennie were talking in the barn whilst everyone else was playing games. They began talking to each other about each others dreams.
They both talked about each others dreams and what they wanted to do in their life. Lennie has a fascination of stroking things. He was stroking Curley's wife's hair, he began to stroke her hair so hard, that he lost control and broke her neck.
This has a big impact on George, Lennie and Candy's relationship, as Curley wants to kill Lennie. As a result to this, George has to kill Lennie before he gets killed by Curly.
Loneliness will always end in tragedy and dreams will rarely become reality. Friendship never ends.
By Daniel Royes 10R
Year10
English
Of Mice and Men.
Daniel Royes 10R
