Candy is lonely because he is old, and different from the other hands. His only comfort is his dog, which keeps him company and reminds him of when he was younger, we know this from candy repeatedly saying “I had him since he was a pup, I herded sheep with him.” Candy has no relatives and when his dog is killed he becomes completely alone. When Lennie and George offer their idea to candy about the dream farm, candy clutches the idea so he won’t be alone. Candy expresses disappointment with the bitter words, “You god damned tramp”. Candy blames Curleys dead wife for spoiling the dream.
George is also lonely, like candy has his dog for company George has Lennie, continuing the parallel George is left alone when lennie is killed.
The dream farm is his idea, and says, “we’d belong their………no more run in around the country”.
Another character is Curleys wife Newly married and in a strange place she is forbidden by Curley to talk to any one, because of this, she constantly approaches the other hands with the excuse of looking for Curley, but the men regard her as a slut, and Curley becomes more intensely jealous.
Her loneliness leads to her death in the end as she makes the serious mistake of trying to overcome this by playing the tease with Lennie.
Curley is also lonely. His wife hates him we see this from her sarcastically saying to George “yeah he’s a swell guy” as do all the other hands who despise him for this cowardice. She has married in the attempt to over come this loneliness, but has wrongly chosen an inappropriate wife for the kind of life he leads. His aggressive behaviour is because of his feelings inside, which further isolates his wife and leads to the incident with lennie where his hand is crushed.
George and Lennies dream farm was used by Crooks and Candy as an antidote to their loneliness. We know that many of the workers all had a dream from Crooks saying “every ones got a lil pierce of land in their hands” the characters used these dreams to fight the loneliness and hopeless ness of their existence. The theme of loneliness played a huge part in this novel and showed the stunning results of loneliness leading to there deaths of three characters most loved ones, candy’s dog curleys wife and Lennie
