This essay is going to focus on the importance of loneliness in this novel of John Steinbeck and show how it affected some characters.
Of Mice and Man is a story of two men, George Milton and Lennie Small, whom have nothing more than each other and a dream. A dream that one day they will have their own farm where they would settle and live in peace. They work from ranch to ranch (reflection of American’s society on the 1920’s) most of the time because of troubles caused by kind-hearted, childlike Lennie but at this time they seem to find a job with perspectives to stay a bit longer than the usual.
Loneliness affected both of them and most of the characters on the novel.
George is intelligent and aware of the reality. He knows his dream to have a farm with Lennie is almost impossible. Although George has the company of Lennie all the time, he feels lonely and frustrated because Lennie is very childlike which makes George responsible for Lennie most of the times and consequently suffer the consequences of Lennie’s errors. All these errors make them move round from ranch to ranch and as result not to have any ‘roots’. That entire situation frustrates George. “God you’re a lot of trouble”, said George. “I could get along so easy and so nice if I didn’t have you on my tail. I could live so easy and maybe have a girl”. George feels that he could have a better life if he did not have to deal with Lennie’s troubles. However, George got used to Lennie. “’Course Lennie’s a God damn nuisance most of the time, but you get used to goin’ around with a guy an’ you can’t get rid of him.” George stays completely lonely after Lennie’s death. Loneliness makes George very frustrated, and aggressive and cold to others.
Lennie is too immature to understand how lonely he is. He depends on George all the time because he is not able to get things right without George’s orientations. His satisfaction can be fulfilled with simple things like eating, and petting. The dream is seen by Lennie as something that will definitely happen and it lets him very happy. It shows how immature Lennie is. Sometimes Leenie’s role is compared to Candy’s dog in terms of making company to their ‘owners’.
Candy is an old man with some physical disabilities whom represents older people on the American society on the 1920’s/30’s on the novel. Candy has no family and no company apart of his very old dog. His dog is also old and useless just like Candy. Candy feels even lonelier when his dog, that made him company for years, is killed by somebody else. Loneliness affected Candy because was an old man he wanted someone to look after him. Thus, Candy offers his savings quite quickly to help George and Lennie to achieve their dream but at this time with Candy included as well.
Crooks is another character affected by loneliness. He represents the black community which were isolated and discriminated by society on the 1930’s. He is first mentioned as a nigger. “...the stable buck’s a nigger”. Crooks is separated from other men, he is not allowed to live on the bunk-house with other men because ‘they say he stinks’. He has his own room in the stables. He creates his own rights because he is not given any right at the ranch. When Lennie tries to get in on Crook’s room he says “You got no right to come in my room... Nobody got any right in here but me” then he says to others whom visited his room “Maybe you guys better go. I ain’t sure I want you in here no more. A colored man got to have some rights even if he don’t like ‘em” Crooks does not like the fact of being left apart but even like in that position it’s important to him to have some rights, too.
Curley is lonely too. The way he responds to it is with aggression. He passes most of the time looking after his wife. That reflexes his insecurity and lack of confidence in himself. Although married, these action show that there’s no love in his marriage.
Curley’s wife is first tagged as “a tart”. She flirts on the men on the ranch that also reflects how loveless her marriage with Curley is. Her name is never mentioned on the novel. She is ignored even by her husband. She represents the women on the society as not given importance. She had the dream to be on the movies but it is nothing but another unfulfilled on the novel.
It is interesting how Curley’s wife labelled herself, Lennie, Crooks, and Candy. “They left all the week ones here”. These four characters represent the community left apart on society – women, black people, old people, and people with learning difficulties. It also demonstrates how that society had the ‘macho’ concept stuck in their minds. However, that macho society was not happy because of their isolated lives, broken ties with families, and alienation from each others.
John Steinback used ‘Of Mice and Man’ to protest about the treatment certain people on society were treated. The four characters mentioned above are the main representations of the people not treated fairly. John Steinback showed the forms that that people of those groups were discriminated. They were put away from others, not taken seriously, and given the lowest type of jobs to do by the ‘macho’ society. However that society does not see that people are not given equal opportunities and they need to be treated with dignity. The lack of that treatment led to loneliness which affected them negatively – low self-esteem, unhappiness, frustration. To hide that loneliness, dreams are on the mind of the people affected by that loneliness. But unfortunately these dreams are never met.
