Crooks is always alone because he’s the ‘nigga’ on the ranch. He sleeps in the saddle-barn alone and separated from the other workers; no one comes in there to talk to him. He never talks to anyone about life and non-ranch related things. Since he’s a stable buck, everyone basically leaves him alone because he gets very little respect as it is so they want to give him privacy and hardly ever socialize with him, especially with the racism of the time.
Steinbeck shaped the ranch where George Milton and Lennie Small worked in as an isolated and primitive place. Steinbeck uses his personal experience as a ranch worker to describe how the working men at the ranch felt in the novel. George says that "ranch workers are the loneliest people in the world and don't belong nowhere".
Steinbeck also portrays loneliness through characterisation. He uses sexism, racism and ageism to get his messages across.
One example of this is when George meets the old, decaying Candy and his antiquated dog, he tells him about the "black" man called Crooks. Candy stated to the inarticulate George "give the Stable Buck hell. Ya see the stable buck's a nigger". This was typical of 1930's America as black people were thought of as inferior to white people. This suggests that Crooks was friendless. He has his "own bunk in a separate nigger room" and "he scattered personal possessions around the floor; for being alone he could leave things about". Crooks is obviously suffering from racial discrimination as he is the only black man on the ranch and is not allowed in the bunkroom with the other men because of his colour.
Crooks feels "...A guys goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he with you..." He would work for nothing, as long as he could communicate with others.
He therefore, had a very lonely existence.
George, although with Lennie, is often lonely because of Lennie’s mentality. George is always sacrificing himself and his happiness for the sake of dumb Lennie. Lennie is lonely, but perhaps too dumb to know this or even understand this.
Often George becomes angry with Lennie, it is at these times that Lennie’s true stupidity and blindness to the world around him becomes obvious. ‘If you don’t want me George, why I’ll jut goes up into them hills there and live in a cave, no one’ll bother me there George’. Lennie’s stupidity is obvious here as he believes he can ‘go and live in a cave on his own’ and survive, he even thinks his life in the cave might be better than his life with George. He is unaware of the work others, especially George, put in to help him, George is forever helping Lennie, worrying if he’ll make a mistake and advising him on all matters, much like a parental relationship. This makes it obvious Lennie is alone and lonely.
The novel, as said, carries several clear themes. The loyalty and friendship which exists between two men, George and Lennie, and the hostile environment of America during the American Depression. These two themes are also merged to give a more amazing theme. The combination of the friendship between George and Lennie amongst the harshness and depression both of the American depression and of life on a ranch gives a clear contrast between friendship, loneliness and prejudice.
Often, Steinbeck uses his personal experience as a ranch worker to describe how the working men at the ranch felt in the novel. George says that "ranch workers are the loneliest people in the world and don't belong nowhere", this is then compared to the friendship between George and Lennie. Steinbeck uses George and Lennie as a contrast because they are the only people to have anyone to talk to. To demonstrate this, Lenny exclaimed "But not us because.........because I got you to look after me and you have got me to look after you and that's why".
Steinbeck also uses Candy to portray loneliness. The disconsolate Candy becomes lonely after his beloved dog was shot. The men in the ranch describe the dog as a "stinking hound" and an "old bastard"; there harsh opinions of the dog and Candy show their lack of interest in Candy’s opinions or feelings. Candy feels dejected as he says "I wish somebody would shoot me when I become useless".
This proves that Steinbeck describes Candy as lonely character, as he is saying, when I’m old there won’t even be anyone there to care about me, to look after me and to love me. He feels after he can no longer work there is no point in him living as he will be a burden to whomever he prays upon.
Another example which Steinbeck uses to illustrate why these men are lonely was when Whit describes that he has a friend who was in a magazine; he said, "Do you remember Bill Tenner. He worked here three years ago?"
This emphasizes how these ranch workers never developed relationships; they can barely remember a man that they worked with just three years ago. This is further emphasised, they describe him as a great worker, who drove the cultivator. This, it would seem would stick in there memory. It didn’t, this proves that relationships are not a part of ranch life, especially relationships you would remember.
