Steinbeck can also use Lennie’s intelligence problem to make him the opposite of George which makes them fit together.
Lennie also has the problem of acting a bit childish. He loves to stroke anything soft, which some people do, but he goes over the top and it sometimes gets him into trouble (killing Curley’s wife while stroking her hair and the girl in the red dress in Weed). It doesn’t stop there though, he gets very excited over little things, like the ripples in a pool bouncing off of the edges of the pool with “long gulps, snorting into the water like a horse”. (Once again he’s described as an animal). I think that Steinbeck describes Lennie as childish to show how acting like a child doesn’t mean that you haven’t got a few bursts of frustration left.
The last problem with Lennie is that near to the end of the story, his built up anger and frustration become unleashed in a manner of hurt and death. As soon as he hurts Curley I think that he realises how it feels to unleash his desire to be vicious. He kills his puppy then kills Curley’s wife. It’s like the world’s got something against him. Before he actually does something bad he panics. When he heard Curley’s wife screaming it was like what happened in Weed so he panicked and held on to her hair but it seems he killed her for his dream. When someone gets so close to their dream they won’t let anything get in the way of their goal. Before Curley’s wife’s death, Lennie was begging for her silence. He was saying: “Sshhh, or George won’t let me tend no rabbits”. He killed her for the dream. Steinbeck uses this frustration to show how some people aren’t always hat they look like.
The relationship of George and Lennie differs from the other rancher’s relationships because George and Lennie have something special. Trust. Nobody trusts anyone on the ranch except George and Lennie. They trust each other because they know that they are the only people they can trust because they only have each other and nobody else!
Loneliness is the main theme of the novel and it’s there to show you how people crave for company. Then why don’t they make an effort to find company? That’s because they don’t trust each other. Sure, they like each other and they’ll easily have a social conversation together but they don’t trust each other. Crooks hates every other rancher because of their colour. He makes no attempt to make friends, he just sits in his room groaning to himself when he could be socialising. I think that when Crooks says about “when a guy’s lonely, he goes nuts”, it’s his feelings shining through. I also think that Crooks wants privacy because he’s gone too far. He’s been lonely for too long and therefore he’s used to loneliness and so doesn’t want to see anyone.
Life on the ranch is tough. In fact around that time life was tough. Nobody cared for anyone like when the bus driver made George and Lennie walk instead of driving them there. Life on the ranch though was survival of the fittest (or the friendliest in this case). Many men would “go nuts when you’re lonely” in Crooks’ words. Other people say stuff like: “A guy needs somebody to be near him…. A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody”. “Guys like us, that work on the ranches are the loneliest guys in the world”.
Life on the ranch is also full of craving. They even pay at cathouses just to get company and a drink. George pays with the money that’s going towards his dream because he’s so desperate for company. That money could change his life for the better and he spends it on having company.
Every rancher has a disability:
George is short tempered but doesn’t have much of a disability. Lennie is stupid, childish and commanded. Candy has only on hand. Curley breaks his hand in a fight. Crooks got kicked in the back by a horse and has a crooked spine.
Disability is another theme in the novel but disability links to loneliness as in it causes racism and people don’t like you because of your disability. Steinbeck makes most people disabled (except some people) to show how tough, hard and unlucky life is.
Candy has got to be the unluckiest man in the world. He’s had his hand chopped off and he hasn’t a friend in the world (or he did have his dog until he was shot).
When is dog gets shot it’s like a piece of Candy’s life goes with it. Nobody, especially Carlson, understands how Candy feels. I don’t think that anybody realised that the dog was a living thing and without it, Candy would have nobody and nothing.
I think that before Candy had his dog shot he was only scared of one thing – being lonely. He couldn’t stand being alone. He always is trying to get involved with other people like when he wants to share Lennie and George’s dream. He can’t STAND loneliness.
When Candy is trying to convince Lennie and George to let him in on their dream he says something quite disturbing:
“I wish they’d put a bullet in me”. That shows that when his dog died, he had no reason to live so he needed this dream, and that’s also how he tries to cure loneliness, by having a dream with company.
When Candy is lonely, he’s left alone. Nobody goes to comfort him when his dog gets shot. They leave him alone not realising that they’d taken away his only companion.
Candy is no only treated differently friend wise, but he is also treated differently pay wise when he says about earning $250 a week and when he says about all of the luxuries in his room which the others don’t have i.e. when Steinbeck describes Crooks’ door. He’s given more than anyone else because he’s old and handicapped which to me seems wrong. If someone is good for what they do then they should be paid the same. It’s society. He does easier work and gets paid more.
Curley is a very lonely man. He has nobody and makes no effort to get anybody as a friend. The only person who he “likes” is his wife but he doesn’t seem to show any affection for her.
The reason he’s lonely is because he thinks that he’s upper class and therefore too good for anybody else. He thinks that he’s too good to have friends. He’s too strong, upper class and “cool” to make friends. His fear is losing in a fight. He fears that if he were to lose then his reputation, as a tough man would fall apart. The ranchers know that and so they say: “You got your hand caught in a machine. If you tell anyone about this then we’ll tell them how it really happened”.
They say that after he had is hand crushed. They used his reputation as a threat against him.
Being the boss’s son makes him spoilt. His dad treats him like number one and so he treats himself as number one to all of the other ranches.
Steinbeck introduces Curley to add a bit of ranking to the ranchers which kind of makes ranking another theme.
Curley’s wife is a desperate woman. She was so desperate that she married Curley so that she could say that she had someone even though Curley treats her badly.
She dresses in a very “tarty” manner to entice men because then she can finally have company. “She stands with her chest out leaning against a wall” which I think is supposed to make her look innocent. She knows that men treat her like an object so she tries to entice men with her looks to say that she’s all right with that when she isn’t.
Curley’s wife is lonely because she went for the wrong man. If she’d have led a normal life as the person she really is then she’d probably find a man she’s like but she took the first choice at company, which was Curley.
Crooks is a man who must enjoy privacy but he doesn’t. He may sit in the barn alone but he still craves for someone like when Lennie said he was going to leave and so Crooks was nearly begging for him to stay.
Crooks is black and is often referred to as “nigger” which only drives Crooks further away but that’s how black people are treated. Black people are treated like rubbish. People would rather spit on someone than talk to them. That’s what society was like.
I think that Crooks’ worst nightmare is to forever be lonely with nobody to hear his cries for example, when Crooks is begging George and Lennie just so that he could share a place with them just for the company, “ah please let me stay with you” and he even uses his dog as an excuse for a reason to die, “when I heard that pistol fire I wish they shot me with it!” That’s why his dream is to have everyone as equals and no more racism but just a nice happy equal world. He is dedicated to this dream but he thinks that he’s being mistreated because he’s black. He even keeps a book of civil rights with him. It’s like he’s protesting.
Slim is shown by Steinbeck as a flower from a pot of soil. He’s described as “godlike” which means he’s looked up to like a god.
He’s different from the others as he’s everyone’s friend (he even occasionally goes to see Crooks) and even helps them when they’re feeling low. George is like Lennie’s mother but Slim is like the father to all of the ranchers because he looks out for them.
I think that he lacks and craves for emotions, which others use like sadness and that’s why he needs to feel what they’re feeling so he comforts others to get a taste of emotions.
Steinbeck uses him as an idiot. A man that does things right.
In the barn scene Crooks takes advantage of the power he has over Lennie to use it against him in a chain of threats: “What if George don’t come back” that’s the kind of trick a child would pull.
When it’s just Crooks, Lennie etc., Curley’s wife walks into the barn and says: “They left all the weak ones here”. That shows that she’s starting to get a bit of Curley’s upper class and now thinks that everyone is worthless. She then says when she wants them to keep her company and talk to her: “Funny how when I catch one man he talks but two don’t. Do you know what? You’re all scared of each other, that’s what”.
She couldn’t be telling the truth any more. Everyone’s scared of each other!
Curley’s wife has become bitter and cold and is now offending the ones she wants to talk to.
Lennie seems like he wants to make more friends. That’s because George keeps leaving him there alone and he needs company or else he’ll turn mad.
Candy seems to have cheered up and recovered from the death of his dog because he has a dream. The dream is Candy’s target and he can almost taste it! You can then certainly tell that something is going to get in the way because as soon as they’re happy something happens and they become miserable again.
Many of the ranchers use something to express their feelings like George when he plays cards. When he sets out his solitaire hand it means that he lonely (solitaire being a lonely man’s game) but when the cards are in a pile or heap on the table, it symbolises that the loneliness has gone.
Lennie, when lonely, needs something soft. He likes to stroke soft things to keep him company when he’s lonely.
Candy likes to pet his dog when he’s lonely because he is his only companion and so it’s the only thing he can be friends with.
When Crooks is lonely, he tends to read but he soon gets fed up and would cry.
In conclusion to the questions “How does loneliness affect a man?” I will answer with Slim’s quote: “Loneliness makes a man mean”.
Once you’re lonely you go nuts and crave for company.
Steinbeck was trying to say that life has its ups and downs. Sometimes you’re as light as a feather until you sink back and become lonely.
He introduced a lot of themes which all link back to loneliness, dreams, disability, ageism, sexism, racism.
He used them all in a clever way to produce an excellent story on loneliness.
To answer the question, I’m going to finish with; Loneliness affects the people on the ranch by making them do different things:
- Candy uses his dog to express loneliness. When he’s lonely he strokes, pats or plays with his dog. The dog is Candy’s only form of companionship.
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When Lennie is lonely he tries to find something soft to stroke e.g. a mouse. If Lennie doesn’t get something to stroke he usually has an outbreak of emotions causing either chaos or sympathy.
- When George is lonely he uses a pack of cards to express his emotions. When he’s lonely he plays solitaire and he plays till he finds someone to keep him company. When the cards are in a messy pile on the table it shows that Georges loneliness has been crushed.
- When Curley is lonely he uses an outburst of aggression to make others suffer. He strikes at people or uses verbal insults to make the opponent back down. Being the boss’s son, Curley has it easy but he feels better than others and so bosses people about. This is the reason why Curley’s lonely. Nobody likes Curley even his wife because he feels like he’s on top.
- When Curley’s wife is lonely she tends to get a bit too friendly with men and flirts with them. She says that she would do anything to be able to talk to someone every now and then and so attracts men with her looks.
- Crooks are constantly lonely because the other ranchers mock him because he’s black. He lives in the barn on his own with the animals. When he’s in the barn alone and an ‘intruder’ approaches he gets very frustrated. When only him and Lennie are in the barn, Crooks has power over Lennie and so takes out all of his pain from being lonely on Lennie. He threatens him e.g. “what if George doesn’t come back?”
- Carlson is a troubled and hollow man. When he gets lonely he tends to tease. When Candy was troubled because of him he made matters worse by stroking his gun. I think that’s INSANE! Who would stroke a gun?
- Slim is a ‘godlike’ character and is kind of the saviour of the people at the ranch. When someone is lonely they go to him. I think that he’s so popular he doesn’t have enemies and so is lacking the ability to express himself. He needs emotions so he talks to people to feel their feelings. He’s like a psychiatrist accept he doesn’t get paid but gets rewarded with emotions.
Steinbeck tries to show within the book that loneliness is sometimes fatal. It can lead to insanity or even death! He shows this by introducing the death of Lennie, if he hadn’t have been lonely and wanting to stroke Curley’s wife’s hair then he wouldn’t have died because Curly wouldn’t have been mad for the death of his wife. It also works the other way around because if Curley’s wife hadn’t flirted with Lennie because she was lonely then he wouldn’t have struck out and killed her.
By Oliver Jarvis
