In the novel, George is a migrant worker who has been traveling around America doing odd jobs with his fellow companion Lennie. George is a small man with small strong hands, dark face and sharp restless eyes. From his description I can see that George is a clever and careful character. Lennie on the other hand is a big man with large pale eyes, and sloping shoulders. His movement had a bear like quality and the way he is described in the novel makes him sound like an animal. George and Lennie travel together because they are friends and have known each other a long time. Also it would be better then traveling alone, because they would have no other companions and so would be lonely.
At the start of the novel George and Lennie are in a natural clearing a few miles away from the ranch. They have not got any money because they had to buy bus tickets and had to flee the last town because Lennie got into trouble.
George and Lennie have a good friendship but at times it seems that it is a relationship between and father and son. George seems to take the roll of the father and Lennie the son. Even though George complains about Lennie and says that he would be much better off without Lennie, he still needs Lennie for companionship. I know this because in chapter one George says, “God a’ mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job a job an’ work, an’ no trouble.” This shows that George sometimes does wish he is alone because Lennie is sometimes just too much trouble and he thinks that if he didn’t have to look after Lennie then he wouldn’t have all this money trouble. Although, even though he sometimes wishes that Lennie wasn’t around he knows that he couldn’t live without him. I know this because when Lennie tells George that he can leave if George wants him to and says he can go live in the hills. George apologizes to Lennie for shouting at him and tells him to stay with him.
George and Lennie both share a dream. Their dream is to own a piece of their own land where they can live and feed themselves. This is the American dream. For George and Lennie the dream makes them think they are different to the other workers. George tells Lennie how most workers make some money then spend it all in some brothel or bar He then tells Lennie how they are different. He tells him how they have each other and they have a dream that they are working towards. For George and Lennie their dream is very important because it is a way they are getting through life. The dream gives them hope, and that is one human feature that always seems to make people believe that everything will be ok and they will be happy.
John Steinbeck shows that their dream is an ideal because it is just too perfect. The dream is about George and Lennie having their own land on which they will have rabbits, a cow and grow vegetables. Also the ways Lennie describes the rabbits shows that it is just a fantasy. He says they will be all different colours, like yellow and green. The readers know that this is impossible and yet they sympathize with Lennie because of his child like innocence.
In chapter four George is with the rest of the men at a brothel called Susy’s. Even though they have gone there to get some relief after the long day they have had, it is quite hypocritical of George to be going to this brothel because he says that he is not one of the men who just goes there and spends all his money. Although we are not told if he does spend any money there it is quite likely he does spend some. This means he is being a hypocrite.
In chapter four Lennie goes into Crooks room without being invited. In this chapter Lennie is in Crooks control and when Crooks starts telling Lennie that George has left him and won’t come back Lennie believes him and then gets angry. Crooks calms him down because Lennie can be very dangerous when he gets angry or upset. After a while Candy comes in and he and Lennie start telling Crooks about their dream and how it will come true. Even though George told them not to tell anyone they tell Crooks anyway because he is Black and they think it won’t matter if he knows.
Candy is an old man who has been at the ranch for a long time. He has been allowed to stay there because his hand was cut off in one of the machines at the ranch. At the ranch he works as a floor sweeper. Candy is lonely because he is considered just to be an old man and none of the workers really talk to him that much. He did have a dog which was very important to him because he was his only companion and he had owned the dog since it was a puppy, unfortunately for him the dog became too old and so had to be shot. Also it hurt him more because he was not able to shoot him and the dog was shot by someone else.
Crooks is lonely because he is a Black person and on the ranch he is the only one. They do not let him stay in the barn with the rest of the workers and so he has no one to talk to. He only has his books and they are very important to him because they are a form of companionship. Crooks and Candy are both lonely because they have no one who they can really talk with and make friends with. In chapter four they have been left behind while the rest go to Susy’s cathouse because Candy is considered to be too old and Crooks is Black and so cannot go into many places.
Candy gets involved in George and Lennie’s dream because after his dog gets shot, Candy over hears George and Lennie talking about it and asks them if he could be apart of it. He says he is willing to pay and pays much more ten both George and Lennie combined. This dream gives Candy new hope and therefore feels livelier. When Crooks first hears about the dream he is quite critical about it but the further he hears about it the more convinced he becomes. However he has seen too many peoples dreams broken and so he says he does not want to be apart of it. Steinbeck shows that without dreams people have no hope and without hope life seems to be worthless. He shows that people need dreams, however farfetched they are, so that they feel they have goals and something to look forward to.
Crooks has a more realistic attitude towards dreams, he says in chapter four that dreams get destroyed and it ruins people lives. I can show this because he says, “an’ every damn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a god-damn one of ‘em ever gets it.” This is proof that Crooks is more realistic and he knows how the world works. He knows that people never seem to make their dreams come true.
Curly’s wife is quite young and beautiful. She is lonely because she has no one to talk to. She married Curly because she was upset with her mother and so does not really love Curly. She is a trophy wife for Curly. In chapter four she is the one in charge of all the misfits. She knows this and so she behaves quite badly and is mean to Crooks. When Crooks tells her to get out she tells him to be quiet or she will get him hanged. She tells him that all she has to do is scream rape and he will be hanged. This shows that Curly’s wife also has an evil side. In this novel Steinbeck is sexist to women. He does not even give Curly’s wife a name, and makes her look like a tart. Also most of the other characters think she is a bad woman, George gives her names such as “jail-bait” and “tart”.
Curly’s wife also has a dream. Her dream is to become a star and become rich and famous. She is quite gullible, we know this because she tells Lennie about a man telling her he would take her to Hollywood and make her a star, but in reality he just wanted her.
Curly’s wife’s loneliness leads to her to own death because she is so desperate to talk to someone she starts to talk to Lennie. Lennie has a childlike mind and so does not really understand her and they both talk about two different things, but for Curly’s wife just being with someone is good enough. She then lets him stroke her hair and when Lennie does not let go, she starts screaming, this makes Lennie confused and frightened and so he suffocates her.
The writer has shown loneliness in this novel through the actions the characters take and the things they say. Some of the similarities between the lonely characters are that, that both Crooks and Candy are treated differently. This leads to them wanting to get involved in George and Lennie’s dream. Also Curly’s wife is similar to these two characters because she is a woman, but between the three characters she is the most powerful one. Lennie and Candy are similar because they are both coping with life through their dreams. The writer is saying that loneliness is a curse itself and people react in different ways to it. He is trying to say that humans cannot survive when they are lonely and sometimes can go crazy.
The novel “of Mice and Men” is a tragedy and the writer shows that George and Lennie’s friendship is doomed from the start. He shows that even though they need each other they will never be successful with their dream. With Lennie’s death the dream is over for both George and Candy. Without Lennie George will have no companionship and so he will be the same as the rest of the migrant workers. George shot Lennie because even though Lennie did not realize it, he had committed a crime and taken a person’s life. George knew that Lennie had gone too far this time and knew that he had no other choice. Also he did not want the others to find him because they would have made him suffer and George would not have been able to see that happen. I think that in some ways he did do the right thing because if he let the others find Lennie they would have put him through trials and tortured him, however maybe he should have let the justice system deal with the case instead of taking matters into his own hands.
The theme of loneliness in this novel is a very good reflection of the social and economic settings of the 1930’s. I think this because many of the issues it covers are typical of the 1930’s, such as racism and sexism.
