Crooks is a black man that experience loneliness because the society which he lives in is racist. “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”. This quote is Crooks finding a personal connection with Lennie when he comes into the barn unexpectedly. Like Lennie, Crooks has a ‘relationship’ with loneliness. Lennie knows this because all he has is George but due to his lack of communication skills it creates a sense of loneness as people, including George, generally can’t understand him. Crooks knows that when people get lonely, they tend to get sick. (Studies show that people who suffer from loneliness have higher incidence of health problems. This can be determined based on his emotional behavior. "A 1998 study showed that 50 percent of patients with heart disease who reported feeling very isolated, were not married and had no one in whole they could communicate with, had died within five years.")
(ub-counseling.buffalo.edu)
Crooks is rejected from every group of people which disables him from socialising and interacting with others. ‘I ain’t wanted in the bunk house, and you ain’t wanted in my room’ Crooks also talks about his rights, he is very defensive so uses his knowledge of his rights to defend himself. ‘You got no right to come in my room…I got a right to have a light.’
Candy is an old swamper who has been disabled because he is missing a hand. He has worked on the ranch all his working life. He lost his hand in an accident on the ranch. It was due to his hand being caught in a machine which as a result left him with money. Candy suffered from loneliness and that loneliness was further reinforced when his dog was shot due to it being old and stinking out anywhere it went. Candy is afraid of loosing this job because his age would mean he would not be able to find any more work or a place to live. This is his life, not just a job he could leave at any time he felt like it. Because of his age and disability, he has a feeling of uselessness “They’ll call me purty soon”. Candy thinks that nobody wants to be friends with him because of this disability. Eventually, he tries to find friendship by attempting to join the dream of George and Lennie. To try and get the friendship and to join the dream, Candy offers money to help buy the land which is buying his friendship showing how lonely he actually is.
Curley's Wife's loneliness has a different source; her husband is the cause.
Even though Curley's wife is mentioned alot, nobody asks what her name is. Nobody wants to talk her because people are afraid of Curley. He would become jealous and would start a fight with anyone who tried approaching her. She doesn’t like Curley, and furthermore he doesn’t talk to her at all, and there's no one in her life who she can share her feelings with. But because she is Curley's Wife, most of the ranchers avoid talking to her, and she notices that she is being rejected and ignored and asks them several times what is wrong with her, and why doesn’t she have a right to talk like everyone else does "What's the matter with me? Ain't I got a right to talk to nobody?", and that no one cares about her "Seems like they ain't none of them cares how I gotta live". The first quote is something similar to what Crooks would say but more of a statement saying that he does have the right. She dresses the way she does, heavily made up, in reds that contain connotations of danger and evil, to gain the attention of the ranchers and to sooth her loneliness. She is often referred to as a ‘bitch’, and a ‘tart’ or any other words that can offend a woman. Candy’s dog is treated with even more respect than Curley’s Wife because the dog has a name ‘Lulu’ whereas Curley’s Wife doesn’t.
These characters are all similar by the way that they all have dreams as a way to comfort themselves during the times of feeling really lonely. Even if all people are miserable when they are lonely, the consequences of friendship can be even worse. When one of the members of a friendship is removed, it causes misery and pain; when Candy lost his dog, he kept thinking about him, and felt terrible because he kept thinking that he should have shot his dog himself, and looks for friendship elsewhere. When George had to shoot Lennie, he felt terrible, because he had just shot his best friend, his lifetime companion, his only friend in the world. Because of this, he has to live the rest of his life, in guilt, alone and knowing that he killed his only friend.
Human beings were made to live in society, thus all people are driven towards others, and is it a natural instinct to seek friendship and companionship. When they find it, they are the happiest people. The only downside to finding a friend is what happens when one of the friends is lost. This causes even more misery in the remaining friend, and forces the friend to start searching again, which is a hard process, because the person has taken the habit of his friend and being comfortable in his relationship, and opening towards others is harder.
One of the most important lessons we learn in Of Mice and Men is that Friendship and human interaction are two very valuable things, and that having them is as much as a right as it is a privilege, that we much treasure as it keeps us away from loneliness.
