The Theme of Loneliness in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men

The Theme of Loneliness in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men

The name of the author of this novel is John Steinbeck. He wrote this

novel in 1936 and it was published in 1937. The novel is set in a

ranch, which is near the town of Soledad, California. Steinbeck got

the name for his novel from a poem by Robert Burns called "To a mouse,

on turning her up in her nest with the plough. At the time this novel

was written America was in the period of the Great Depression. This

meant people could not find many permanent jobs and so had to travel

around the country looking for work. This meant that the workers were

sometimes away from their families for a long time and had to travel

alone just to try make some money. This was a very bad period in the

American history with a high rate of suicide and many people got

bankrupt. Usually the workers would stay in a job for a few weeks

after which they would travel to find another job, this meant they did

not have much time to make friends and so often were very lonely. The

main characters in "of Mice and Men" are George and Lennie. The story

is based around them and their time at the ranch. Some of the other

important characters are Slim, Curly, Curly's wife and Candy.

This novel has many themes in it which include loneliness, the dreams

of the workers and also apartheid and sexism. Some of the characters

who are lonely are Curly's wife and Crooks. These two are lonely

because first of all Crooks is as Black person and at the time Black

people did not have the same rights as White people. This meant that

Crooks had no one to talk to and usually had to spend time by himself.

After a while of spending ti...

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...hot Lennie

because even though Lennie did not realize it, he had committed a

crime and taken a person's life. George knew that Lennie had gone too

far this time and knew that he had no other choice. Also he did not

want the others to find him because they would have made him suffer

and George would not have been able to see that happen. I think that

in some ways he did do the right thing because if he let the others

find Lennie they would have put him through trials and tortured him,

however maybe he should have let the justice system deal with the case

instead of taking matters into his own hands.

The theme of loneliness in this novel is a very good reflection of the

social and economic settings of the 1930's. I think this because many

of the issues it covers are typical of the 1930's, such as racism and

sexism.