It is clear Lennie respects George and sees him as a master, which in a way he is. In Chapter 1, when George demands the mouse we see how much power George truly has over him:
“Slowly, like a terrier who doesn’t want to bring a ball to his master, Lennie approached, drew back, approached again. George snapped his fingers sharply, and at the sound Lennie laid the mouse in his hand.” (Chapt 1, pg 11)
George and Lennie travel together, do everything together, eat together and share everything, but their relationship is only made as strong as it is by one thing-the fear of loneliness, of being left alone. This is why George will never allow his threats of leaving Lennie to come true-he is too scared of becoming like the other men on the ranch. When he has to shoot Lennie, he knows he is bringing this on himself but he still does it, which shows us what a moral and just man he is. He shoots Lennie to save Lennie from pain he wouldn’t understand. However, they are still each lonely in their own way. George is lonely to “live so easy and maybe have a girl.” He wants to settle down but at the same time knows he has a duty to Lennie. Lennie is lonely because he is different, a victim of a harsh world. It is not his fault he has been born without the full mental faculties of others, but he suffers despite this and is lonely. We can see this on page 83, when he is grieving over the death of his puppy. He treats the puppy as a friend, a fellow human because he has no one else to talk to. In a way, the animals are the only ones of his mental facilities, they are uncomplicated and so don’t confuse him.
Candy is described as a “tall, stoop-shouldered old man” with “a round stick-like wrist, but no hand.” and “bristly white whiskers”. It is thought he lost his hand in a farm accident and this has resulted in him being given the worst job on the farm-that of ‘swamper’ or menial cleaner. He has lost all control of his life and passes his time by being subservient to others. The only way to get his own back is through gossip, although on two accounts he does stand up to people. These both fail miserably and only serve to make him look even more pathetic.
Candy is devoted entirely to his dog which is a canine form of Candy himself, being very old, ‘stiff with rheumatism’, smelly and equally devoted to Candy. Like Candy, before his old age he was a good working dog, but now he has been reduced to a shadow of his former self-‘a drag-footed sheep dog, gray of muzzle, and with pale, blind old eyes’. Candy and his dog are reliant on each other and provide a parallel to George and Lennie’s master-dog relationship. His dog is shot by another ranch hand, believing it to be the kindest thing for the dog, which it probably was. In the same way, George shooting Lennie was also the kindest option available. Candy is devastated and lost without his dog, and this is when his loneliness really sets in. There is little future left for him, except misery and a life of being alone, and he tries valiantly to change this by buying into Lennie and George’s dream. “Suppose I went in with you guys. Tha’s three hundred an’ fifty bucks I’d put in.” He is desperate for friendship and the only way he can see to get that friendship is by ‘buying’ into one already forged. For a while, it almost works, but the end of the dream and friendship comes once Lennie kills Curley’s wife.
Crooks is the sole Negro on the ranch. He is described as a “proud, aloof man…his eyes lay deep in his head, and…seemed to glitter with intensity. His lean face was lined with deep black wrinkles, and he had thin, pain-tightened lips…” (pg 67). However, he carries a double burden of being a black man in America as well as being a partial cripple: “His body was bent over to the left by his crooked spine,”. For this reason he is very much segregated from the other ranchmen and he has his own room in the stables, with a “manure pile” under the window. The fact that he is considered low enough as a human to be placed not with other men, but rather with horses says something about the prejudices against blacks, although he is treated well by the ranchmen and has a good life in comparison to some blacks in the same period. We can see how racism is still present from some of the things Crooks tells us in chapter 4 when he is talking to Lennie about why he isn’t allowed in the bunkhouse: “’Cause I’m black. They play cards in there but I can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink.” (pg 68). This means he has to spend all his time reading books, alone, because there are no other Negroes on the ranch. He tries to show Lennie how he feels by comparing Lennie’s life without George to Crooks’ own life now: “S’pose you didn’t have nobody. S’pose you couldn’t go into the bunkhouse and play rummy ‘cause you was black…S’pose you had to sit out here an’ read books…Books ain’t no good. A guy needs somebody-to be near him…I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.” (Pg 72)
When first Lennie, then Candy both come to his room in Chapter 4, he is delighted: “It was difficult for Crooks to conceal his pleasure with anger.” (Pg 74). It is very easy for us to see not many people come into his room: “Guys don’t come into a coloured man’s room very much. No one’s been here but…Slim an’ the boss.” (Pg 75).
It is useful for the reader to have Lennie talking to Crooks, because Lennie is a very childlike character-he doesn’t understand why Crooks should be suffering as a result of his colour, so Crooks is forced to explain his most hidden feelings and bare all to Lennie and us. He tries to show Lennie how he feels, first by talking about his past at his father’s chicken ranch and telling him how happy he was then. He says, “the white kids come to play at our place, an’ sometimes I went to play with them and some of them was pretty nice.” (pg 70). This innocence that comes with children has clearly disappeared as he has grown older and we can see he misses this life. He has little contact with any of the men, save for Slim and the boss, and no friends on the ranch. This may go part of the way to explaining why he is so bitter-he is a proud man, and well educated for a Negro, but he is also very defensive and expects the worst from white men, as we can see when Lennie first appears at his door:
“You got no right to come in my room. This here’s my room. Nobody got any right in here but me.” (pg 68)
It may also be a façade to hide his loneliness and frustration, since when he stops being hostile towards Lennie; much of this is exposed for us to see.
Crooks is another very lonely character, as a result of racism, but in talking about his loneliness he sums up the case for everyone on the ranch and helps explain why Candy and his dog, and George and Lennie, managed fairly successfully to escape loneliness:
“It’s just bein’ with another guy. That’s all.” (Pg 71)
Curley’s wife is a fairly recent addition to the ranch, and is described as having “full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages. She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers.” The ranchmen look on her as a “tart” and “jail bait” but she is never truly evil. We learn a bit of her history when she’s talking to Lennie in the last chapter-an actor from a travelling show invited her “to go with that show” when she was 15, but her “ol’ lady” wouldn’t let her. Then, when she was older she met a man who she tells us “was in pitchers”. He told her “he was gonna put me in the movies. Says I was a natural. Soon’s he got back to Hollywood he was gonna write to me about it.” We can easily see this was just a false promise to try and lure her to him, but Curley’s wife is so desperate for it to be true she desperately believes it. When a letter doesn’t come she tells herself her “ol’ lady stole it”. She says she “wasn’t gonna stay no place where I couldn’t get nowhere or make something of myself…So I married Curley.” This is a revelation to us-it tells us she married Curley, not out of love, but because she was so disappointed and he was there at the time when she needed someone. Sure enough, later she reveals, “I don’t like Curley. He ain’t a nice fella.” This helps us understand why she is so lonely-she is on a ranch with probably no other women and doesn’t love the one reason why she is forced to stay there. Curley is hardly ever there and doesn’t understand his wife himself. He is used to men and fighting and only speaks of his wife when he is making obscene allusions to her. He is obsessed with his wife behaving herself and being a good little housewife who stays at home. This frustrates his wife-she asks Candy, Lennie and Crooks if they “think I don’t like to talk to somebody ever’ once in a while? Think I like to stick in that house alla time?” (pg 77) and then later she tells Lennie “I get lonely…You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad.”
Curley’s wife is very isolated; only she is lonely because she has no one to talk to. It is probable there are no other women on the ranch; the boss’ wife is mentioned so infrequently we can presume she is probably dead. She was probably a virgin before she married Curly, but has been forced to realise her sexuality is the only weapon she has to fight her isolation and win the ranchmen over. The fact that this only succeeds in making the ranchmen dislike her and avoid her is a great pity. They are very much afraid to talk to her because, as she herself puts it: “You’re all scared of each other…Ever’one of you’s scared the rest is goin’ to get something on you.”. She means they are scared if they talk to something seen as the forbidden fruit, peer pressure will come crushing down on them, and they would have to face the wrath of Curley and his fists. In a way, it is kind of idealistic that Lennie and she end up together in the penultimate chapter, since Lennie is the only one who doesn’t understand why she is off-limits. Even then, he tells her “I ain’t suppose to talk to you or nothing.”. She has to plead with him to talk to her and eventually he does. In the end, this desperate loneliness causes her death, then Lennie’s as a result. She is the one who brings about the end of the dream, the end of everything for George and Lennie, but it is never her fault. It is simply the outcome of isolation.
In the penultimate chapter, Lennie and Curley’s wife are brought together in the barn. They are there having being shunned by the rest of the ranch hands, who are outside playing horseshoes. The pair of them are probably the loneliest in the novel-the two outcasts who can never fit in, Lennie because of his lack in mental facilities and Curley’s wife because she is ignored by Curley and avoided by the other ranchmen. The chapter starts in the stable with Lennie, mourning over his puppy, which he has accidentally killed. He treats it like a fellow human, and is reproachful towards it because it had to die and therefore in his head this means he has “done wrong” and won’t be allowed to tend the rabbits:
“Why do you got to get killed?…Now maybe George ain’t gonna let me tend no rabbits, if he fin’s out you got killed.” (pg 84)
Curley’s wife, bored and restless, finds him in here, and insists on sitting with him, although Lennie argues that he “…ain’t to have nothing to do with you…” She gets him to admit he likes “to pet nice things with my fingers, sof’ things.” and encourages him to stroke her hair. However, he strokes too hard and she cries out, frightening Lennie and making him cling to her hair, just like he did in Weed and with Curley’s fist. This instinct to clutch on to things when scared is something all humans have in them, but it is somewhat advanced in Lennie and causes her death:
“Lennie was in a panic. His face was contorted...Lennie’s other hand closed over her mouth and nose…Then Lennie grew angry…he shook her and her body flopped like a fish…Lennie had broken her neck.”
The moment Curley’s wife’s neck is broken, so is the dream. Candy discovers Curley’s wife and tells George, who eventually judges they must “tell the…guys”. Candy insists they should still get “that little place”, but he knows it is useless-without Lennie the dream is never able to come to fruitation: “I think I knowed from the very first. I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would.”
Even when his closest companion risks suffering, still George retains his moral principles and knows Lennie has to pay. The only way to do this in the nicest way is for George to make him pay, and he does. He takes Carlson’s gun in case he has to kill Lennie as an act of mercy and goes to find him. We know Lennie would die a cruel death without understanding what he had done if George didn’t kill him himself. It is ironic that George takes Carlson’s pistol, because this leads to the ranchmen assuming “the bastard” (Lennie) stole it for defence. The result is the ranchmen adopt a shoot-to-kill policy, ensuring whatever happens, Lennie will die.
When George finds Lennie, Lennie is crying out for him. He asks George, “You ain’t gonna leave me are ya, George? I know you ain’t.” George answered no, and proceeds to talk about their dream, telling Lennie to “Look acrost the river, Lennie, an’ I’ll tell you so you can almost see it.”. This dream is now ominous because for Lennie, this dream is one he will experience after his death. There is an ulterior meaning when Lennie asks George to “Le’s do it now.” and George replies with “Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta.”. When George shoots Lennie it is softened by the knowledge that perhaps now Lennie will get his dream of a little place in heaven, where nothing is unjust and there is no loneliness. In this respect, the ending is not sad but optimistic.
Once George shoots Lennie, the dream is over, as is the friendship between Candy, Lennie and he. George and Candy could still buy their little bit of land, there is no practical reason why they shouldn’t, but they both know it is another story emotionally. The dream is dead with Lennie and because of Lennie.
Loneliness is a major theme in ‘Of Mice and Men’. George and Lennie fend it off by their relationship, whilst it embitters Candy and Crooks and kills Curley’s wife. Steinbeck offers no answer to loneliness, he just shows us a graphic and moving portrayal of the problem, and allows us to observe. Much of the sadness and emotional power of the novel comes from our knowledge that things won’t and can’t change.
Throughout the book, Lennie and George’s relationship is placed on a parallel with Candy and his dog’s. The deaths of Lennie and the dog are also tied in together, but neither is tragic for those dying. Lennie and the dog are escaping from a world which does not tolerate them, but the pain is forced onto those who took them out of this world-Candy gave permission for his dog to be shot and George took it upon himself to kill Lennie. George sums up what his and Lennie’s, and Candy and his dog’s relationships mean: “’Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world’…Lennie broke in. ‘But not us! Because…because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that’s why.” (pg 14-15)
The tragedy of George is that his best-loved features force him to kill the thing and the person he loves most. He has made huge sacrifices for Lennie but when he kills him he makes the biggest sacrifice of all. Lennie dies with the words and expression of their shared dream on his lips and face.
Candy’s isolation is caused as a result of a mixture of things: the bond he had with his dog; his physical disability and his old age. Indeed, his relationship with his old dog is probably unhealthy and prevents him from creating a relationship with others, but he clings to the dog despite all that logic and common sense might say. In the same manner George and Lennie’s relationship is probably too close, and in a way Steinbeck frees George from this relationship to allow him to be free, like he always threatened. It is ironic that this is the last thing George wants.
Curley is isolated too, but we feel no pity for him as he has brought it on himself. He sees the world only through his eyes and is often displaying a malicious cruelty to everything living. The pity instead falls on his wife, who, during her life on the farm, is described as ‘jail bait’ and who is avoided by the ranchmen, despite her many efforts to attract them. After her death though, we see what she really is, as all her troubles and loneliness is put to rest:
“And the meaness and plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young. Now her rouged cheeks and her reddened lips made her seem alive and sleeping very lightly.”
Lennie is the symbol for all this loneliness. He is the one who accepts Candy and Crooks and Curley’s wife for whom they are but he is also desperately lonely within himself. There is a barrier between him and the rest of the characters that he can never cross, in that he doesn’t have the full mental facilities and therefore is left as the follower, the one left behind, as we see when he first enters and in the barn.
Crooks is in the novel to appear 2/3rds of the way through and warn of the imminent destruction of the dream. He is a character in which you have to believe because he is so convincingly drawn and can be identified with. He is exposed to Lennie’s dream, and warms to it, as the reader does. Then he realises it is nothing more than a dream, a fantasy. Like Crooks, we want to believe in that dream despite everything we know. Like Crooks we know it will never happen. His isolation stems from racism and in portraying a character like Crooks, Steinbeck attacks everything associated with racial injustice.
In their own way, everyone in ‘Of Mice and Men’ is lonely, but only one of those who suffer is blameworthy for what he has done and deserves his punishment, and that is Curley. The rest-George, Candy, Lennie, Crooks, Curley’s wife-are just victims of their society, victims of a world which doesn’t allow for people to be different.
