The setting is lonely because it is very quiet and calm and peaceful. The novel is set in Soledad. John Steinbeck chose this setting for the novel because it is in the middle of no-where so that it is hard to find and fits in with the whole theme of loneliness.
Crooks is lonely because he is black and he was jacked in the back and nobody on the ranch wants to be with him because the other migrant workers won’t let him into the bunkhouse to play cards with the others, because of his skin colour. Crooks is the loneliest character in the novel because he is black, half crippled and because he’s black he has no friends and this quote proves that being on your own for a long time can make a person sick because you can’t talk to anyone.
“A guy gets lonely and he gets sick.”
Crooks
Candy is lonely because he is an old man and he has no right hand and he did have an old dog that stank. Candy gets lonelier in the novel because Carlson takes Candy’s dog out and shoots it in the back of the head and Candy was very attached to the old dog because he raised it from a puppy. Candy gets afraid of joining George and Lennie’s dream because if they lose it he will become lonely again.
Curley’s wife is a lonely character in the novel because she’s married to Curley, a very handy, tough, small man. She is also the only young female on the ranch and this also gets her to flaunt her bodily figure to all the men to get their attention and this causes the men to think that she’s nothing but bad news, but the only reason she flaunts her body is because she’s got a dream of being an actress.
Curley is lonely because he thinks that his wife flirts with all the other men on the ranch and this makes him cranky because she doesn’t flirt with him and she’s supposed to be married to him. He is also lonely because he has entered an unsuccessful marriage and this makes him respond to this mistake by posturing his ‘manliness’ in his aggressive behaviour towards those weaker than himself. He also might be lonely if all the other migrant workers compare him to other people because of his wealth and because of he’s privileged to be the boss’s son so he poses a threat upon the other workers.
George is a lonely character in the novel because he goes around the ranches looking for work with Lennie and because of Lennie’s mental maturity George can’t really talk to Lennie about anything because Lennie wouldn’t understand.
Lennie is a lonely character because he is mentally immature and is very forgetful because of his mental immatureness. Lennie would also be looked upon as lonely because he is big and strong but when he kills an animal he was stroking he strokes a bit too hard and ends up killing the poor animal, but this shows that he doesn’t act strong because he likes to stroke small soft animals, so Lennie has a sensitive side that the other migrant workers don’t have.
Slim, Carlson and whit are typical migrant workers and they are lonely because they go around to ranches on their own. John Steinbeck chose too include these characters in the novel because: -
- Slim is a role model to the other migrant workers because he is supposed to be the most handsome man on the ranch.
- Carlson because he is the only man on the ranch who owns a ‘lugger’.
- Whit because he is the cleanest man in the bunkhouse.
In conclusion I would say that John Steinbeck explores the theme of loneliness in the novel by using human characters, places and animals as examples of loneliness because they are lonely.
By
Rebecca Prior
10KCo