George and Lennie are companions who travel from place to place trying to finally create their dream. Which is to one day own there own ranch. George the protagonist of the story is a quick witted and sharp man. He takes the fatherly role of Lennie. Lennie the other protagonist of the story is a mentally disabled man. Despite possessing a child’s mental ability he is described as having features of a bear.
“ A huge man shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders; and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his.”
This quotation shows how he has features that resemble a bear. The other men on the ranch don’t understand their relationship and find it weird and almost gay.
“ We travel together.” George said coldly. “ Oh, so its that way.”
George and Lennie describe themselves as the loneliest people in the world.
“ Guys like us that work on ranches are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They belong in no place.”
The loneliness makes both George and Lennie have a dream that motivates them to work. It is the one reason they are still living for.
“ I said what stake you got in this guy? You takin his pay away from him?”
As this quote show the boss believes that George is exploiting Lennie. As the other men come to see the new comers they find out how there friendship is built on loneliness. Although George and Lennie are close friends they are still lonely in the sense that they are completely different to one another.
When the two main characters George and Lennie first arrive on the ranch they are met by Candy. Candy and his dog resembles the same relationship as between George and Lennie in the sense that both the relationships are brought together by loneliness. As George and Lennie a different so is Candy and his dog. Also Candy seeks comfort in his dog, as Lennie to George. Carlson is pessimistic to Candy’s dog as he sees it a burden to candy and itself.
“ He ain’t no you Candy. An he ain’t no good to himself. Why’n’t you shoot him Candy.”
After much discussion the dog is shot because of his low status and authority towards the other people. Candy is left lonely and isolated after the loss of his dear friend.
Carlson is also another lonely guy. He is unsympathetic and doesn’t know the gratitude of friendship. His best friend in the book seems to be his gun. This shows how lonely he really is, he also seems to be unconcerned with matters around him.
“ He laid them on his bed and then brought out the pistol…then he fell cleaning the barrel with the little rod.”
The way in which he cleans the gun shows signs of loneliness.
Curley’s wife is one of the most likely loneliest characters in the whole tale. She seems no have no identity, just a possession or object of Curley’s. Curley’s wife is made to look like a tart by the way candy describes her as giving the eye to people like crooks and slim etc. Curley’s wife does flirt with the men on the ranch an is aware of the effect she has on the men, but she is not a tart. All she wants is attention and not to be locked in Curley’s room all day long. But she is getting the wrong kind of attention, which makes the fellow people on the barn think badly of her.
“She had full rouged and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red.’’
She likes to dress up in order to attract the men. The men on the other hand don’t flirt back as they are scared of what Curley might do. This leads to loneliness in many characters.