One of the loneliest characters in the book ‘Of Mice and Men’ is Curley’s wife. Candy thinks Curley’s wife is a tart. She is lonely because Curley doesn’t pay much attention to her. The following suggests this “I get lonely”. She flirts with the other men on the ranch but they don’t pay any attention either: “Her face was heavily made up”, but they don’t pay any attention either (“You got no call foolin’ aroun’ with other guys, causin’ trouble”). Other people describe Curley’s wife as being an attention seeker, who tries acting attractive to them. Curley has warned any one not talk with his wife. Curley’s wife say’s she is lonely because she has nobody to speak to: “You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad.” She feels like Curley owns her and he is in charge of her.
Nobody wants to speak to her because they think she’s a tart who throws her body around and then Curley gets angry: ‘Ain’t I got a right to talk to nobody? Whatta they think I am, anyways?” In the novel just before Curley’s wife dies she says to Lennie that she could have been in the movies, could have gone to Hollywood and had a different life without loneliness in her life: “He says he was gonna put me in the movies. Says I was a natural.”
Just before Curley’s wife dies she tells us she doesn’t like Curley her husband. This is significant because if Curley’s wife would have been in the movies she would not be this lonely. The story would have changed and she is the only woman on the ranch so people on the ranch ignore her. She feels left out, odd one out and isolated.
What happens to Curley’s wife make us fell sorry for her and make us feel that she is lonely. She isn’t given a name in the story. It makes us feel that she is lonelier, that she had no identity of her own.
Another lonely character in the book ‘Of Mice and Men’ is Crooks. Crooks is a hunchback black man. Crooks is not allowed to play with the other men in the ranch because he is the only black man on the ranch and people were racist at this time to black people: “They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black”
People on the ranch say that Crooks stink because they think all black people stink and they are dirty: “They say I stink”, Crooks is not allowed to sleep in the bunkhouse and chat with the other men on the ranch because he is a black man and they are all racist to him: “I ain’t wanted in the bunkhouse”
Steinbeck is trying to tell us that if you have nobody near you or nobody to talk with you would go mad: “A guy needs somebody to be near him’. He whinnied,’ A guy goes nuts if he ain’t get nobody” Crooks get sick all the time because he is very lonely: “I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick”
Crooks agrees to join Candy and Lennie in working on their dream farm for free but changes his mind because he knows it isn’t going to work out and he only the black man in the ranch, he won’t like staying with them: “I did’ mean it. Jus’ fooling’. I would’ want to go no place like that.”
Steinbeck describes Lennie and George In a different way to Curley’s wife and Crooks because Lennie and George have each other and some one to talk to.Curley’s wife and Cooks are on their own. They have nobody to talk to unlike Lennie and George: “An’ I got you. We got each other.”
They are different from Crooks because they are white people. They have more respect but Crooks is black man who gets no respect. Steinbeck is showing us the harsh social conditions that existed for black people at the time.
When Lennie and George discuss their dream, it feels like there is hope, That they can get out of this dump and have their own place. Nobody bossing them around. Once they have enough money: “we’d have a little house an’ a room to ourself.”
The theme ‘Of Mice and Men’ is loneliness. Steinbeck makes us think that the men on the ranch are all unable to communicate with each other and remain isolated. The only characters who seem to be different are Lennie and George because they show there feeling to each other and can communicate with each other. But by the end of the book, Lennie is dead and George is alone as well. He could not make his dream come true without his friend.
