Of Mice And Men - 'A recurrent theme in the novel is that of loneliness - How far does loneliness affect the characters and drive the plot?'

        Another character that leads the plot that is very forlornness and isolated is Curley’s wife. Shes a major character who doesn’t even have a name. She is that shut out from the rest of the world and only known in the book as ‘Curleys Wife’. Curley’s Wife has a pugnacious Husband ‘Curley’. ‘Curleys not a nice man, he does bad things’. You can clearly tell from that quote by his wife that he might hit her and maybe take advantage. Curley has abandoned his wife making her stir up trouble with ‘ the men on the ranch’. ‘why cant I talk to you I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely.’ She is always walking around flirting with the men on the ranch. You can tell that she is a flirt by the way Steinbeck draws attention to her. Hence the fact she doesn’t have a name as I stated before. She always walks around the bunk-house attempting to make a friend and have a one to one conversation, putting on a guilt trip trying to draw attention to herself, so the ‘men on the ranch’ will feel sorry for her. Steinbeck also draws attention to her by making her the only female character mentioned in the book, apart from Aunt Clara. She is driven to spend her time with characters whom she believes to be weak e.g. Lennie. Ask yourself this why does Steinbeck make Curley’s Wife the lonely forsaken character she is?  

        The plot is kept going by the way these lonely people react to each other, if Curleys Wife hadn’t have gone into the barn and tried to find an companion perhaps Lennie wouldn’t have broken her neck and killed her, making Lennie travel to the ‘brush’ therefore George would never have shot him. However having said that, if Carlson wouldn’t have shot Candy’s dog candy never would have stated to George ‘I should ave shot him myself’ then George may not have shot Lennie.

        Paragraph 5 general comments on the plot, giving e.g. how each person is lonely and how it keeps the plot going.

On my overall conclusion is that loneliness is the plot. Loneliness had a big input on the way the plot flows. Every character is involved even if they do the littlest things even if it is Suggesting that Candy’s dog should be shot. Steinbeck expressing the fact of loneliness through such characters like Candy and Curley’s wife and many of the others.