All the men on the ranch are able to pass through the ranch except Candy and Crook who are forced to stay because of their disabilities. No-one seems to have a family and they all go into town to spend their wages to not be lonely for a night.
George and Lennie were very different from the other ranch hands, they had each other, ‘we got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us’.
George and Lennie enjoy the dream of the two friends owning land together, ‘An’ if a fren’ come along…we’d say ‘Why don’t you spen’ the night?’
George talks to slim about how he sees all the other guys walking around the ranch alone, ‘I seen the guys that go around the ranches alone. That ain’t no good’. He says that he and Lennie ‘got kinda used to each other’ and ‘it’s nicer to go round with a guy you know’.
George tells Slim how he once used Lennie for fun, but he learned not to after he made Lennie jump in a river. He says that ‘I ain’t done nothing like that no more.’ He protects and defends Lennie after that, like not allowing Slim to call him ‘cuckoo’, and telling the boss that ‘he can put up more grain alone than most pairs can’ and not letting Curley to beat him up.
Lennie is sure of his friendship, despite being slow-witted, I know this because when Crook’s suggests that George abandons him he gets angry, ‘George wouldn’t do nothing like that.’ Lennie is also very protective of George, ‘Ain’t nobody goin’ to talk no hurt to George’.
When he kills Lennie, George makes sure Lennie dies happy, Lennies last words being, ‘Le’s get that place now’ this is ultimate proof of their friendship.
Crooks is segregated in the barn, this shows racial discrimination of the 1930s, this is the main reason for his loneliness.
Candy tells a story from Christmas when ‘they let the nigger come in that night.’, again showing racial discrimination of the 1930s.
I think Crooks is the loneliness guy on the ranch because he is excluded from the bunkhouse, no cards or chat. When he comes to speak to Slim about a mule’s foot, he does not enter, ‘the stable buck put in his head.’
We see how he lives at the start of section 4, he reads books to take the place of companionship.
‘Crooks was a proud, aloof man’ because he has no choice but to endure the prejudice from the other ranch hands, he also has to endure isolation. He doesn’t let anyone is his room, saying to Lennie, ‘This here’s my room…I ain’t wanted in the bunkhouse, and you ain’t, and you ain’t wanted in my room.’
He is regretting the way that he taunted Lennie, ‘A guy needs somebody – to be near him’ and ‘a guy gets too lonely’ and ‘A guy sets alone out here at night’
Candy has a dog for his company, ‘I had ‘im since he was a pup.’
All the other ranch hands can’t understand the idea of friendship and want the dog shot because it is useless. They don’t recognise candy’s affection for his dog as he pleads with them to let the subject go, ‘I’m so used to him’ and ‘he was the best damn sheepdog I ever seen.’
He offers his money to George and Lennie to buy property because ‘I ain’t got no relatives nor nothing.’ He knows the future is more loneliness and then death, ‘They’ll can me purty soon…I won’t have no place to go to.’
When Crooks sneers at the idea of owning their own place, his answer shows the comfort he gains from his new friends and the end to all his loneliness, ‘we gonna do it…Me and Lennie and George.’ This gives candy the sense of friendship and self-esteem, Candy shows this by answer Curley’s wife when she insults him, ‘We got fren’s, that’s what we got.’
When Candy realises the dream is over he takes his anger out on the corpse of Curley’s wife’s, ‘You wasn’t no good…I could of hoed the garden and washed dishes for them guys’.
Steinbeck describes they way Curley’s wife dresses in the first meeting in great detail, he stresses how incongruous her clothes and appearance are, with her ‘full, rouged lips’, ’heavily made up’ eyes, ‘red fingernails’ and ‘red mules on her insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers.’ She is the only female on the ranch, and is the sort of female that wouldn’t fit into a hard-working ranch. She seems to be more friendless and unknown by not by giving her a name. Every time we see Curley’s wife her excuse for wandering around is, ‘any you guys seen Curley.’
All the ranch hands are careful around Curley’s wife because they are scare of what Curley might do, George has to teach this to Lennie, ‘leave her be.
On Saturday night, she wanders into the bunkhouse despite knowing Curley has gone to the cat-house she asks where he is, clearing showing she is lonely. She announces her loneliness to these men, ‘Think I don’t like to talk to somebody ever’ once in a while? Think I like to stick in that house alla time?’
She lashes out because nobody wants to talk to her, calling them ‘a bunch of bindle stiffs’ and saying she is only here because ‘They ain’t nobody else.’
She pleads with Lennie, ‘I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely.’ She maybe the loneliest person on the ranch.
When she realises that she can talk to Lennie, she confides that she only married Curley to get away from home and he mother who ‘steals’ her mail.
Although Steinbeck is sympathetic and we like the characters we know at the end there is no escape from their loneliness and poverty.