George and Lennie travel together and this seems strange to the ranch workers on the ranch in Soledad. There are many reasons why they travel together and some are more obvious than others are. As we know the characters are very lonely but George and Lennie have each other for company. ‘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 are able to understand what it is like for the other ranch workers and I think George and Lennie may be scared of what it would be like if they didn’t have each other.
Another reason for their unlikely relationship is the responsibility that Aunt Clara gave to George when she died. She used to look after Lennie but when she passed away George had to take care of Lennie.
The most important reason however is the ‘American Dream’. A dream shared not only by Lennie and George, but also by most people in this era. They dreamt of having their share of the countries wealth and this is what keeps them going and working to save up money. This is what they live for.
The ‘Dream’ is a common feature in the novel and as we read on we begin to see that the other characters also have, or used to have their own dreams. George and Lennie’s, however, is to get ‘the jack together’ and buy a house with ‘a couple of acres’ with a few animals. Lennie likes to hear about where they’re going to live and about what the garden will look like. George promises that if Lennie is good he will get to ‘tend the rabbits.’
Lennie believes it will happen but George has doubts. ‘Nuts!… I ain’t got time for no more.’ He finds talking about it is a little depressing because Lennie is getting excited about something, which might not actually happen.
We would not think of George as being one of the many lonely figures in the novel, but as we read on Steinbeck cleverly uses a form of symbolism to indicate how George might be feeling. He ‘put out a solitaire lay.’ George uses this game to represent that it is a one-player game, therefore symbolises that he has to play by himself and be alone. It also represents the lonely lives of the ranch hand, and how George doesn’t want to be burdened with the duty of looking after Lennie. This is very ironic because George isn’t lonely as he has the company of Lennie but at times he wants to be alone.
As we know, the first new character we are introduced to when George and Lennie arrive at the ranch is Candy. Candy is described as a ‘tall, stoop-shouldered old man’ and ‘he was dressed in blue jeans.’ This gives us an image of what looks like so we can build up a picture in our minds.
We get the impression that he has been at the ranch along time: ‘Last guy that had this bed was a blacksmith…’ He knows a lot about the people that are there and seems to have a good knowledge of the ranch. Steinbeck also begins to give us the idea that Candy is a lonely character. He starts to gossip to George and Lennie and Steinbeck does this to show that Candy wants someone to talk to, indicating he does not have someone normally. He is alone for most of the day and does not go out into the fields with the other men, nor does he go out with them at weekends.
Because he is an ‘old man’ we wonder why he is still on the ranch. He also only has one hand so this adds to our curiosity. Steinbeck says he had a ‘round stick like wrist, but no hand.’ However he is employed as a ‘swamper’ and carries ‘a big push-broom’. We know a ‘swamper’ as being a cleaner and the broom is his equipment. The audience wonder why the ranch would want to employ someone who is only capable of some jobs, due to his disability, but he is kept on as part of his compensation. As soon as he is sacked from the ranch and no longer able to do anything he will go to the ‘county’ which we find out more about later in the novel.
He comes across as very friendly and as I said this is probably because he is lonely. But later on in the story we find out that he has a dog. ‘At his heels there walked a drag-footed sheep dog, gray of puzzle…’ The dog is the only ‘friend’ that Candy has and their relationship cannot be understood by the other characters: ‘You can have a pup if you want to.’ They think that a new pup will be able to replace Candy’s dog, however the relationship between them is similar to the one of George and Lennie and these friendships cannot be understood by the ranch workers because they have never encountered a close friendship of any kind.
There are similarities between Candy and his dog and Steinbeck does this cleverly by using the dog as a form of symbolism. ‘I had ’im ever since he was a pup. God he was a good sheep dog when he was younger.’ As we can see the sheep dog used to be a good worker but now it is crippled. This relates to Candy, who once was a good worker on the ranch but now, as he has got older he has also become crippled just like the dog.
The future for Candy in the middle of book seems to be coming to an end because we begin to find out what the ‘county’ is. When people get old or become disabled they are considered no longer any use for work, so they go to the ‘county’. When put into context, this is similar to an old people’s home, however the conditions would have been very unpleasant and the people are considered worthless so are not cared for in any way. All the people of this time would dread to go to the county and that’s why, when Candy finds out about the dream that George and Lennie have, he wants to become part of it. He explains to George and Lennie that he will make a ‘will an’ leave my share to you guys in case I kick off.’ He also gives them the opportunity to get more money for their dream by offering all his money he has saved up: ‘That’s three hundred, and I got fifty more comin’ at the end of the month.’ He is so desperate to stop himself being put on the county that he offers them everything.
Steinbeck also cleverly uses the shooting of Candy’s dog to symbolise what will happen at the end of the book. The foreshadowing device will later on show what George must do to Lennie. ‘Awright – take ’im’. Candy later on feels annoyed that he didn’t shoot the dog himself and we then know why George must do it to Lennie and no one else.
The next character we come across is Crooks. He is a very important character in the novel and Steinbeck uses his skin colour to reveal the racism of the 1930’s. There were no black rights at this time and Steinbeck clearly demonstrates how a ‘nigger’ is treated.
Crooks is treated differently to the rest of the characters because of the colour of his skin. He explains to Lennie that ‘this is just a nigger talkin; a busted – back nigger. So it don’t mean nothing.’ This quote shows us that it doesn’t matter what he says because of his skin colour. It also helps us understand that he has a low self-esteem and is reduced to nothing; he means nothing to anybody.
Crooks is a very solitary character and has his own ‘stable’ next to the horses. This shows he is thought of as nothing because he is put next to the animals and not with the other people. He is forced to spend his spare time reading ‘battered’ magazines and ‘a few dirty books’ to keep himself entertained, because he is not allowed into the ‘bunk house and play rummy’. He explains that it is almost like an illness when ‘a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.’
Another quote in the story which shows he is treated like the horses is that in his room there is ‘a range of medicine bottles, both for himself and the horses.’ We can see he has to use the same medicines as the horses, which must be very insulting for Crooks.
We learn that Crooks is used as a ‘punch bag’ and a form of entertainment to the other workers. ‘The boss gives him hell’; even the boss has no respect for Crooks.
The old man explains how ‘they let the nigger come in’ one night and was used for a fight. The fact that he was ‘let’ in shows us he is treated like an animal because it is like a dog when we let them inside.
When Lennie comes to the doorway of Crooks’ bunkhouse, he becomes very suspicious of Lennie: ‘You got no right to come in my home. This is my room. Nobody got any right in here but me.’ The reason he is so protective of his space and doesn’t want anyone in there is because he is so use to the bullying and racism from the other ranch workers that he assumes Lennie is there to attack him. Lennie however doesn’t understand racism and doesn’t know why ‘he ain’t wanted’.
We begin to feel more sorry for Crooks when he explains in section four that he used to live on a ‘chicken ranch’ and ‘white kids came to play’ at his house. Here there was no racism, however his ‘ol’ man didn’t like that’. Crooks is not used to living in isolation. He once had brothers who were ‘always there’ and lead a ‘happy’ life. Crooks begins to reminisce and goes into a daydream which shows he must still dream of the life he once had. The audience sympathise with him because when he was younger he didn’t know what racism was and was accepted as being black, but at the ranch he has learnt that people judge you on the colour of your skin and his happy life vanished like waking up from a dream.
Lennie tells Crooks about their dream, but Crooks says ‘you’re nuts!’ ‘Everybody wants a little piece of lan’… Nobody never gets no land.’ Crooks talks about Lennie’s dream in a rather cynical way. He explains that it will never happen and all guys come to the ranches with that idea but it’s just ‘in their heads’. The reason he is so cynical is because he once was living a happy life and the other characters dream of living like that, but it was taken away from him and now has to live where he experiences discrimination and racism.
Crooks explains to Lennie what it would be like to be alone and Steinbeck is clever by using repetition of rhetorical questions, which emphasise what it would be like to be lonely and have nothing. ‘S’pose you couldn’t go into the bunk? S’pose you had to sit out here an’ read books?’ This shows that it must be depressing for Crooks to be alone and it helps us understand what it would be like. It also makes the reader think about his predicament and helps Lennie appreciate what he’s got.
We are once again reminded of the isolated life Crooks has to lead when Curley’s wife uses her authority to threaten him. ‘You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?’ The reader can clearly understand that he is lower in the hierarchy than a woman and the life he has to endure at the ranch.
Before the audience are introduced to Curley’s wife, we find out about her through Candy’s description in the conversation between himself, George and Lennie. ‘Well - she got the eye.’ She is already being labelled a ‘tart’ because she gives the ranch workers the ‘eye’. ‘I seen her give Slim the eye.’ She wants attention from the ranch workers and this is because there is no love in the relationship between her and Curley. Their relationship is based on sex and not love.
She is very flirtatious and we can see this by the way she dresses.
‘She had full rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up…She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers.’
The repetition of the colour ‘red’ is significant as it symbolises danger and warning signs of what happens later on in the book, known as a foreshadowing device.
She takes care in her appearance and she makes herself up, looking for the attention from the men. Although she is married and is labelled a ‘bitch’ and ‘poison’, we feel sorry for her, and the reason she does flirt and gives men ‘the eye’ is because she does not get any love or attention from Curley so therefore feels she has to get it from somewhere else.
Throughout the story we know her as being ‘Curley’s wife’. She is never given a name and this shows us that she is not very significant. She is just a belonging to Curley, who has a name; therefore she is something lower than he is.
As we know all the farm workers don’t like her. She is called many nasty things like ‘bitch’, ‘poison’, ‘jail bait’, rat trap’ and ‘tramp’. The workers only think that she is a flirt, but we know that she is lonely and needs the attention because she doesn’t get it from her relationship.
All the workers are afraid of her, and Lennie who has no understanding of the problem is told by George to ‘keep away from her’ and not ‘to take a look at that bitch’. The reason for this is because the boss is very protective and if he sees her flirting with the men or vice versa then he would get very annoyed and he could sack them or physically hurt them. At the time the novel was written, unemployment was very high and the men could not afford to be ‘canned’
We do not know initially why she married Curley because he shows her no respect or love. However later on we find out that, like most of the characters, she had a dream once. She ‘met an actor’ and he said she could ‘go with that show’ but her ‘ol’ lady’ wouldn’t let her. Then one night she met Curley at ‘Riverside Dance Palace’ and they married. We think she did this because she wanted to get back at her mum for not letting her go with the actor into the film business where she could have had ‘nice clothes’ and ‘big hotels’ and had ‘pitchers took’ of her.
This dream she had and the life she could have lived contrasts with what she has got now, living on the ranch. The two lives are complete opposites and she talks about how Curley thinks she’s ‘gonna stay in that two-by-four house and listen how Curley’s gonna lead with his left twice, and then bring in the ol’ right cross?’ She is young and wants to being going out. “Sat’iday night. Ever’body out doin’ som’pin’…An’ what am I doin’?” Everybody is out on a Saturday night and that’s where she should be, having fun, but she is stuck at the ranch, ‘talking to a bunch of bindle stiffs’.
She isn’t happy in the relationship and confides in some of the characters. ‘I don’t like Curley. He ain’t a nice fella’. She also talks about him sarcastically to Candy and Lennie. ‘Swell guy ain’t he?’ We can see that she doesn’t even like her own husband and she probably wishes she never married him.
At the end of the novel, her loneliness causes her death and the destruction of everyone’s dreams. Lennie ends up killing her because of his need to touch “nice things” and Curley’s wife is in the barn with Lennie because of her loneliness and attention seeking.
It seems coincidence that Lennie and Curley’s wife end up in the barn together and she ends up dead. Lennie is there because he is with a puppy, petting it. He eventually kills the puppy because he pets it too hard. The death of the animal is used as a foreshadowing device, coming just before the death of Curley’s wife.
Curley’s wife goes into the barn because she wants company and finds Lennie in there, so this gives her someone to talk to. ‘Why can’t I talk to you? I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely.’ Curley’s wife has an advantage with Lennie, because of his disability and she can use the way she talks and acts to get Lennie to talk to her.
Curley’s wife knows that he likes to pet nice things and lets him touch her hair. The reader begins to become suspicious and we know something bad is going to happen. We know, from why they got kicked out of their previous employment, that Lennie panics when the girls start to scream, and like he did with the girls dress, he holds on harder to Curley’s wife’s hair. She panics more and her ‘eyes were wild with terror.’ Lennie shakes her and becomes angry and finally ‘her body flopped like a fish’. Steinbeck uses similes so we can picture what is happening. All the dreams she had and she has now been reduced to nothing.
Although she is dead she is bought to life by Steinbecks’ description of her body. ‘Her rouged cheeks and her reddened lips made her seem alive and sleeping very lightly.’ The description shows she is at peace but has paid the ultimate price.
Her death affects the relationship between George, Lennie and Candy. Lennie thinks that throwing the pup away will make the situation slightly better. ‘I’ll throw him away…It’s bad enough as it is.’ This has now put the ‘dream’ that the three characters share in danger. ‘I think I knowed from the very first. We’d never do her.’ This is George talking about the dream and it is linked to section one, when George has doubts about the dream ever happening.
From doing this essay and focusing on the main characters, I can see that loneliness is the main topic in the novel and the characters are lonely for certain reasons. Crooks is lonely because of his race, Curley’s wife because of her sex, and Candy because of his age and disability. Candy and Lennie are portrayed as lonely because of their mental and physical disabilities.
Another main reason for people being lonely in that time was the reason that people didn’t care for each other and it seemed normal that everyone was lonely. They didn’t care for each other mainly because at this time most men, travelling alone, migrated from ranch to ranch on short term, poorly paid contracts, therefore the workers were not very often at ranches very long. Another reason is because of the economic depression in 1929 and men were out for themselves and no one else.
Although George has Lennie, he is still considered a lonely figure because of Lennie’s mental disability; therefore he is not able to hold a proper conversation with him. Candy’s only ‘friend’ is the dog and because of loneliness the other characters don’t understand why the animal means so much to him. Crooks is forced to live next to the stables, shutting him off from the rest of the ranch workers and Curley’s wife shows that she has no attention and is lonely because she goes round the men looking for attention off them. Coincidentally, two of the lonely figures, Lennie and Curley’s wife, end up dead, and it is the loneliness that’s brings them together in the barn.
Over all I think Steinbeck is successful in his portrayal of loneliness, loyalty and friendship and the hostile economic environment throughout the novel. He uses different aspects of the characters lives to indicate that for this reason they are treated differently. Steinbeck writes well and we sympathise with certain characters at different parts in the story. The way Steinbeck uses similes, rhetorical questions and symbolism helps us relate to the characters, consequently making us care about them.