This essay will focus on the theme of loneliness in the novel 'Of Mice and men' by John Steinbeck. I will look at the different characters in the story and how they cope with ups and downs of life on the ranch

Victoria Jackson 10Y

The theme of ‘loneliness’ in Of Mice and Men

This essay will focus on the theme of loneliness in the novel ‘Of Mice and men’ by John Steinbeck. I will look at the different characters in the story and how they cope with ups and downs of life on the ranch and I will also see how loneliness motivates their actions. In particular I will look at Curley’s wife because her actions ruin the dreams of other characters and lead to more loneliness. I will also focus Crook’s because he is the loneliest character in the book and look at how being the only black man on the ranch affects his behaviour.

Steinbeck wrote and set this novel in the 1930’s during the time of the Depression, which left many Americans unemployed forcing them to become migrant workers.

It was a very difficult time for these people and most of them lost their homes and were forced to work on ranches for very little pay. They would often only have just enough money to buy food and the rest had to be spent on travelling to the next ranch. The ranch bosses exploited these people because they knew that people were desperate for money because they had to survive.

The lifestyle of the migrant worker is very lonely they are always moving from ranch to ranch trying to earn their keep, because they are travelling all the time they do not get the chance to settle down and make friends.

By being lonely all the time it encourages distrust to form and this leads to the men keeping to themselves but when they finally think that they can trust people they have to pack up and move on. Life on the ranch was difficult they had to work long hours, the living conditions were bad and the people were hostile. The bunkhouses which they must live in are undecorated and there are few comforts; the men have to sleep on rough burlap mattresses which might have lice the bunkhouse seems unloved and it might make the ranch hands homesick.

George and Lennie share what seems to be the ‘American dream’ of owning their own piece of land and working for themselves. The reader sees that their dream is ruined like so many of the other migrant workers, which relates to the poem which inspired the title of the book, ‘the best laid plans of mice and men’. George and Lennie planned and worked so hard to get the farm and finally when it seemed like it was within their grasp their dream was crushed.

Lennie is lucky because he has George to keep him company they travel around together George finds them the work and Lennie produces the manpower together they are a good team. Lennie is lucky because without George he would probably not survive because he has the mind of a child, someone might take advantage of Lennie because he is naïve. Steinbeck builds up a picture of Lennie by using phrases which compare him to a child ‘A few beans slipped out of the side of Lennie’s mouth’. The idea of food falling out of the mouth is a very child like, it is something that babies and toddlers do and it is not associated with adults. Lennie appears to be in his own world and he doesn’t need to talk all of the time to keep him happy he appears to prefer the company of animals to humans, but whenever he does something wrong he always tells George that “you want I should go away and leave you alone?”, but he does not mean this because without George Lennie would be lost and George and Lennie’s dream would be ruined.

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The dream that George and Lennie share is a special one, it is probably what has brought Lennie and George together the way they are because they know that without each other they cannot fulfil the dream. They also know that by fulfilling the dream they wouldn’t have to be lonely would always be together because they would both own the land and this would also keep Lennie out of the trouble that jeopardizes the dream. In the relationship that they share George is the adult and carer who looks after Lennie keeping him out of trouble. Lennie might sometimes find George to be irritating and stern because he spoils Lennie's fun and he frequently scolds Lennie for his behaviour. Lennie could be seen as being lonely because he is living in the world of adults and he does adults job and is constantly surrounded by them he even admits to Crooks that sometimes he doesn’t know what George is talking about. This might lead to Lennie longing for the company of someone of his own mental age, someone who he could play with and someone who understands him. Instead of doing this he turns to pets for comfort he can control them in the way that George appears to control him when he has a pet he is truly happy.

George is lucky the have Lennie because without him he would become mean and lonely like the rest of the ranch hands who waste their money and have no future. George knows this and says, “Guys like us are the loneliest guys in the world”. He knows that without Lennie that would be his fate, he would not have the dream of owning a farm to keep him going and would probably end up working on the ranches until he was old and useless. George accepts this but he still he longs for a life where he could be free, by having Lennie with him constantly he is denied the other freedoms that the other men enjoy. He wants to be able to have a relationship with a woman and in the future he might want to start a family but he can’t do that while he still has to care for Lennie. Lennie doesn’t understand this and all he can think about is the dream, but they can’t make the dream a reality because Lennie is always getting into trouble which George has to get him out of. At times like these George thinks Lennie is more trouble than he is worth and says, “If I was alone I could live so easy. I could get a job an’ work an no trouble”. George knows that without Lennie he could keep his job and not have to keep moving from ranch to ranch so often. Even though George is sometimes lonely and says he could be better off without Lennie deep down inside he knows that this is not true and he knows that he has to sacrifice his freedom because Lennie needs him. George tells Slim “it’s a lot nicer to go around with a guy you know”. This shows that George is not just Lennie’s friend because he feels it is his duty but he likes having Lennie as company.

The other characters on the ranch are all lonely even if at first glance they do not seem to be. Candy the swamper is old and has no future on the ranch everyday he worries more and more about his future on the ranch and wonders what will happen to him when he gets to old to do his job. The only source of companionship for him is very old dog which he has had since it was a puppy, he is very attached to his dog because it stops him from becoming truly lonely. Carlson convinces Candy to shoot the dog because it is inhumane to keep it alive. After it is done Candy says he wishes that he had shot the dog himself because it has been his only friend and he feels guilty that he let the dog get shot. The shooting of the dog foreshadows the events that happen later on in the story. The death of candy’s dog makes him realise his own future. “When they can me I wish’t somebody’d shoot me”, Candy can see that his dog is killed because it is old and useless just like him. “They said he wasn’t no good to himself nor nobody else.” He knows he will lose his job soon so he looks to the dream of the farm as his last chance and is willing to put all of his money in the ranch so he can lead a peaceful comfortable life by doing this he shows just how lonely he is. Candy thinks that money will buy George and Lennie’s friendship but in reality it won’t, George only agrees to it because it is a smart idea.

Candy is similar to the character Crooks because they are both old and disabled but Crooks is at a disadvantage because he is black. At the time the novel was written black people were still openly called ‘nigger’ even though slavery had ended years before. The white ranch hands live in the bunkhouse while Crooks is confined into a small room in the barn because he is black. Crooks would have had no rights, white people would have been allowed would have been allowed to publicly degrade him and even hit him is he said something in his defence. It would have been very easy for a white person to get Crooks killed if they wanted to. “I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t funny”, here Curley’s wife demonstrates the power white people exercised over black people. Even Curley’s wife who is powerless manages to have control over someone but it is only because they are black.

Crooks is described as being a very proud and aloof man who is never spoken to by then other ranch hands. When Crooks finally gets the opportunity to speak to someone (Lennie) he doesn’t know what to say or do and he ends up taunting him because that is all he has ever known in his life, this may also be because Crooks is jealous of Lennie and George’s friendship and that is why he seeks to destroy it.

When Lennie tells Crooks about the dream he desires to join the ranch and be part of the dream so that he won’t have to be lonely any more and he can be free of the ranch and hopefully make a better life for himself. Crooks minute hope is crushed by Curley’s wife who puts him back in his place when he disrespects her making him realise that he will never be accepted in the world and will end up spending the rest of his days on the ranch till he dies alone.

Crooks has to barricade himself in his room with only his books for company. It is unusual that he can read because in black people were not allowed to be educated. He has to read to keep himself from going crazy but he longs for the company of another human being. “I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick”. Crooks says this because he is talking about himself, he has been alone for so long it has made him seem almost crazy.

The character that is almost as lonely as Crooks in the novel is Curley’s Wife. The men all think that she gives them the eye and is trying to flirt with them while in reality she is just looking for attention and someone to talk to. She dresses in a sexual manner because it is the only way she knows how to attract attention and it works, but in a negative way. Curley’s Wife has no one else to talk to apart from Curley who she despises even though he is her husband. Curley does not like her to go to the bunkhouse and talk to the men because he thinks she’s flirting with them. “You seen a girl around here? Which way’d she go?” Curley treats his wife like a possession he thinks that he owns her and he always appears to be looking for his wife to make sure she isn’t with another man. The ranch hands don’t see Curley’s wife as being lonely but don’t think it was fair for Curley to bring her to a ranch full of men. They are also scared of talking to her because they are afraid of what Curley might do to them every time she tries to get near them they send her away.

Curley’s wife is the cause of the tragic events which happen in the book she gets Lennie killed which ruins the dream for George and Candy who will lead a lonely life.

She does not intentionally do this but her need for companionship leads to this. The reader knows that she is only trying to get someone to talk to her when she is talking with the men in Crooks room and again with Lennie in the barn. She says, “Why can’t I talk to you? I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely”. This proves that she acts the way she does so that people will talk to her and treat her like a human being. Before her marriage to Curley she could talk to whom she wanted and go wherever she chose, she was going be an actress in Hollywood but her letter never came; her life before was much more interesting than it is now. Curley’s wife is never given a name by calling her Curley’s wife it again shows her to be Curley’s possession. It also shows that the ranch hands want nothing to do with her because they don’t even bother to learn her name.

The character Curley seems as though he wouldn’t be lonely he has his wife to talk to, his father and all of the other ranch hands but none of them like him because he is a bully. Curley is always looking for a fight and he especially does not like big men because he is quite small. Curley feels that he needs to prove himself and his masculinity to everyone else on the ranch this might also have been his reason for getting married. Curley’s attitude makes the ranch hands wary of him but they all must put up with him because he is the bosses son.

Slim and Carlson are the characters which accept their loneliness and don’t seem to care about it. They enjoy wasting their money in cathouses and their only future is to continue to be migrant workers. Slim is not as lonely as Carlson because of his job, Slim can stay on the ranch for a long time and meet people whereas Carlson will leave alone when the season ends. Slim is highly respected on the ranch “He moved with majesty only achieved by royalty and master craftsman.” This shows Slim is someone special not just an ordinary ranch hand like George or Lennie. Slim appears watch the actions of others instead of joining in with them “…whose ear heard more than was said to him.” By doing this he is separating himself from the other men, avoiding forming relationships with others.

Steinbeck uses language to emphasise the reality of the situation, when the book was published he wanted people to know about the appalling conditions that migrant workers faced. The language he uses is simple with some slang which would be typical of America at that time. He has used simple language to show that these people were common and makes the story seem more realistic.

At the start of the story Lennie and George are together so they don’t have to be lonely and also Curley and his wife but by the end of the story these relationship; have been destroyed and the remaining characters are left alone. I don’t think it would bother Curley much that his wife is gone because they never had a proper relationship, but George feels guilty about shooting Lennie and he will have to live with that guilt for the rest of his life. I think that the loneliest character in the story is Crooks because he is the outcast of the ranch, the ranch hands treat him in a demoralising way by calling him nigger and he has no choice but to accept it. The other people on the ranch want nothing to do with him because he is black and the only time he gets the company of other people is when he plays horseshoes.

Loneliness provides the motivation for the characters actions in the story. Curley’s wife goes to the barn because she is lonely, she talks to Lennie because she is lonely and eventually her loneliness and attention seeking gets her killed, which leads to Lennie being shot by George. The death of Curley’s wife has a domino effect; it crushes all of the relationships in the story and only leads to more loneliness.

The title of Mice and Men came from a line in a poem by Scottish poet Robert Burns “the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft”. We see that Lennie and George’s dream of owning a farm is ruined by the loneliness of Curley's wife. It shows that no matter how hard George tried to keep Lennie out of trouble he would never be able to do it. If the theme of loneliness was not present in the story then it would not motivate the characters actions and the story would be completely different.