Curley’s wife is a very insecure character as she is lonely and does not know where she is going, or where her life is leading her. She gets very angry sometimes and lashes out at people, “Standin’ here talkin’ to a bunch of bindle stiffs – a nigga an’ a dum-dum and a lousy ol’ sheep-…” This lashing out makes her insecure. Also when she talks to Lennie in the barn, “I get awful lonely.” She went with a bloke and “...says he was gonna put me in the movies.” She doesn’t know where to go or who to trust so she doesn’t trust anyone.
Candy is also an insecure, lonely type of character. The reasons for this are he loves his dog and it is his best friend, “...and behind him struggles his old dog.” His dog is very old and he has it since it was a pup. When Carlson wants to shot him Candy says hopingly, “You ain’t got no gun.” He was hoping that he was right and Carlson was going to say, oh yeah, or something like that so that he couldn’t shoot his dog, but he has a Luger. When Carlson does take his dog out, “Candy lay rigidly on his bed staring at the ceiling.” He’s in a sort of world of his own, in a sort of trance. After they hear the gunshot then “…he rolled over slowly and faced the wall and lay silent.” He has no one to turn to, or to talk to. He has no real friends just his old dog that has just been shot. Later on in the story he wishes that he’d shot his dog himself, maybe this would have been more elf-assured f he had shot it himself. We see this when he’s talking to George about getting their own place, “I ought to of shot that dog myself, George I shouldn’t ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog.” He feels guilty and he didn’t know Carlson all that well, so he relates to him as a “stranger”.
Crooks is an insecure character as he is always on his own, we see this from the first time we hear of him. No one refers to him as Crooks, they call him “stable buck” or “nigga’”. This is because he is black and this was set at a very racist time in history. He has a room to himself, and no one visits him, and he doesn’t want anyone in his room. He is surprised when Lennie tries to enter his room, at the beginning he tries to get Lennie out You ain’t got no right to come in my room.” He snaps at Lennie a lot, when he says “An I seen your light…” Crooks snaps back, “Well I got a right to have a light.” He’s used to people sort of looking down at him, he thinks that Lennie is saying that he shouldn’t have a light because this is how the other characters are towards him. He says that he can’t play cards because he is black and he says, “ They say I stink. Well, I tell you, you all of you stink to me.” He tries to get back at them and acting the same towards them. In the end Crooks just lets Lennie sit with him, “Come on in and set a while...” Crooks is lonely on his own, but he is pleased when Candy arrives, we can tell this because it says, “It was difficult for Crooks to conceal his pleasure with anger.” He is lonely and he enjoys the company of other people because he is not used to talking to anyone, apart from Slim and The Boss who sometimes visit him. We also see this when George asks, “Well, why’n’t you kick ‘em out?” Crooks simply says “I di’n’t care much.” He is lonely and insecure.
As a whole this book has a lot of aspects and characters that show insecurity. I think that the most insecure characters are Crooks and also Candy, this is because Crooks doesn’t talk to anyone and no one talks to him because he is black. Candy is the same but this is because he is an old man and has his old dog. This novel does show a lot of different views of different people, with different lifestyles, and that all types of people can be lonely and insecure.
