Candy also dwells in the depths of dreariness. Being old, he is excluded and is thus a sufferer of ageism. He is also a cripple, due to which he is isolated from others. He says, ”They’ll can me purty soon”- as soon as he is no longer able to work. His loneliness is escalated after Carlson kills his dog, which had been his lifelong companion, and the only source of hope in his battle with loneliness. We know this as, ‘Candy lay still, staring at the ceiling’. This suggests how lonelier he must have got after his dog got shot. His loneliness leads him to the dream dreamt by Lennie and George.
Crooks is another character who is alone. This is because he not only is old and cripple, but also black. He shows clear signs of solitude. He says to Lennie that he reads books all the time, but he also says “Books ain’t no good. A guy wants another guy to talk to.” and, “ A guy goes nuts if he has no one to talk to.” Crooks is never treated properly because of the prejudice against him. He is isolated from other characters because of his colour, and most of the ranch hands mistreat him by calling him ‘nigger’. As a result of aloneness, he gets cynical. He wants Lennie to feel how one feels when he is lonely. He says that, “S’pose that George returns no more.” This shows the effect of loneliness and isolation on him. The author uses him to show the prejudice prevalent against blacks during that time.
Another lonely character is Curley’s wife. She is lonely, as she is the only woman on the ranch she has no one to talk or gossip to. She tries to talk to some of the workers like Lennie by saying, "Why can't I talk to you? I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely.” However, they do not talk to her as they are afraid of Curley and so, treat her as a tart- as George and Candy call her. This definitely adds to her being alone. She always claims, as Whit says, “lookin’ for Curley, or lef’ somethin’ layin’ around and she’s lookin’ for it. ”, which, is obviously an excuse to chat with the ranch workers. But definitely, the main reason for her unhappiness and loneliness is Curley. He forces his wife to feel alone because he forbids her out to go of the house and talk to anyone-as she says, “think I don’t like to talk to somebody ever’ once in a while? Think I like to stick in that alla time?” She is thus, trapped on the ranch with no one to speak to apart from Curley who is not much comfort. This makes her feel secluded.
Curley himself is a lonely character to some extent. He is lonely, as everyone including his wife hates him. She says to Lennie, “I don’t like Curley. He ain’t a nice fella.” All the ranch hands feel that he is a coward, as he cannot take anyone of his size. He is also isolated as he is violent with others. Curley’s wife says she hates him, as he never spends time with her. He is either taking a fight with other men or in the brothel. She says, “Swell guy ain’t he? Spends all his time sayin’ what he’s gonna do to the guys he don’t like, and he don’t like nobody.” Curley has married to overcome his loneliness, but has blindly chosen a wife, who is very different from him in the way he lives. His feelings are hence channelled into an aggressive behaviour, which isolates him from his wife.
All the characters are lonely in some form or other. Even the name of the town, Soledad, in Spanish means solitude or loneliness. To escape from the terrible present, all characters have dreams. However even though they dream, they know that their dream will never come true. George dreams that he ‘gonna get a little place’. He would tend some animals with Lennie and live leisurely there after. Candy also gets involved into this dream when he comes to know about it. He wants to be included, as he knows what his fate is if he can no longer work as a swamper and get canned, ‘they would can me purty soon.’ He offers money to George to include him with them on the farm. Crooks says that he dreams of his childhood, saying, “my ol’ man had a chicken ranch, ‘bout ten acres. the white kids come to play at our place, an’ sometimes, I went to play with them, and some of them were pretty nice.” However George and Lennie’s dream also attract him. Curley’s wife dreams of being an actress in the films in the Hollywood and says that she would have acted in ‘pitchers’. She thinks that her life is wasted as she has married to Curley. She says that she knows people from the film industry who said that she was ‘natural’ in acting. Curley dreams that he would one day be a lightweight boxer.
All the characters know that their dream is never going to be fulfilled. We can say so as Crooks quotes, “ nobody never gets to heaven and nobody gets no land.” However at the same time they know that they would be even lonelier if they do not have these dreams. Thus the dreams give them the much-needed dignity, and provide them a source to overcome loneliness in a form of escape.