Another character that is lonely is Lenny. Lenny is lonely because George is usually yelling at him. Lenny and George are friends, but Lenny tries to talk to other people to make friends besides George. Lenny doesn’t like to be around George after he gets mad at him. Lenny would try to make or be friendly to anyone. He makes friends with crooks when nobody else would. Lenny also shows loneliness by his desire to pet things. This shows that he needs a friend who understands him.
Lennie’s dream is of owning a farm of his own with George. In his dreams he looks after the rabbits. He likes this idea because he likes to pet things and the small thing he finds as he is travelling around, like mice, are too easily hurt or killed when he pets them heavily. He also remembers that he used to pet rabbits when he lived with his aunt Clara.
Steinbeck also used Curley’s wife to show the theme of dreams and loneliness, because she is the only woman on the ranch. Curley’s wife is found running around looking for Curley. Mostly she is trying to find someone to talk to. She would usually only see Curley after he was done with his job and for her that’s too long to go out without talking to someone. What she did was hang around the guys and try to start a conversation with them. The guys don’t talk to her because she is a trouble. When Lenny shows up she tries to make friends with him
Curley’s wife dreams of being a film star. She hated the place she grew up and when she was told she had the potential to be in movies she thought she could escape to Hollywood. However, she never got as far as Hollywood but ended up being trapped on the ranch with no one to talk to. Curley isn’t interested in her dreams and the only person she finds to share it with is Lenny.
Another lonely person on the ranch is Candy. Candy is an old man that really doesn’t have a place there. He does odd-in-jobs and can’t play any games with the younger men because of his age. The only thing candy had to call his own was his dog. Candy has had this dog since it was a puppy, and then they slot it because the dog is so old, candy had nothing to own.
Candy doesn’t have much hope at start of the story, but when he meets Lenny and George and finds out what they are planning, he suddenly sees how his future could be different. Candy is most concerned about being useless. He knows that he is employed on the ranch because he lost his hand there, but he is afraid that eventually he will be canned. If this happens, he will have nowhere to go and no one to care about him. When he hears George and Lennie’s dream he sees a future in which he will own a farm and be forever safe from being canned. He is willing to put up his compensation money to achieve his dreams and he has the pleasure of planning what he will do on his own place. Candy’s dream is shattered by the death of Lennie
Steinbeck used one character that’s lonely but doesn’t seem to be is George. George is lonely because he is always yelling at Lenny. He’s lonely because he can’t talk to Lenny the way he wants to in an adult manner. Usually when the two have a conversation, George has to repeat everything he says two or three times to Lenny understands and doesn’t forget. George makes friends with candy, slim, and whit to hopefully have a conversation with someone of his intelligence. He puts up with Lennie because he knows that is he is left alone, Lenny will probably die
Although, George had Lennie’s company, he wanted to have his own family. George considered himself as a lonely man because his dreams were to have a wife and his own farm.
