Research has been shown that loneliness can have very negative effects on people. En la novella, Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck follows two characters, George and Lennie as they travel together. They encounter other people such as Candy, Curley, Crooks, and Curley’s wife along the way who have large effects on them. Throughout the book, you can see how Steinbeck is showing how it is crucial for someone to have a person they can call a friend. On the ranch, where they live and work, the only thing that Candy has is his old dog. The other guys on the ranch always complain to Candy about how his dog smells and cannot do anything useful. One night, while most of the guys were in the bunks, they started talking to Candy about the dog and how he should put it down. Carlson then says that he would do it for Candy, and he agrees. “A shot sounded in the distance. The men quickly looked over at the old man. For a moment he continued to stare at the ceiling. Then he rolled slowly over and faced the wall and lay silently”(Steinbeck 49). When Candy heard the shot, he knew that he lost the only thing …show more content…
that meant something to him. At this point, he is very lonely because he has no one else on the ranch that he cares about. Losing his dog left him in a temporary state of isolation, but he is not the only one one the ranch who feels this. Crooks is the only african american on the ranch. The small fact that his skin color is different from the others leads to him being treated very different. He explains this to Lennie at one point when Lennie enters his room uninvited. “I ain’t wanted in the bunkhouse, cause I’m black. They say I stink”(Steinbeck 68). Crooks is talking to Lennie about how the others on the ranch make him stay in a different place than they. Every night he is forced to sleep in his own room, by himself, which can get very lonely after a while. Crooks may have enjoyed Lennie talking to him, even if he won’t admit it. This is one of the first times Crooks had someone to talk to which probably made him feel good. This, in some ways, is kind of like Curley’s relationship with his wife. Curley has a very poor relationship with his wife.
He does not pay as much attention to her as you would expect. This generates many of the books conflicts. Curley’s wife is always feeling lonely and unloved because Curley does not treat her right. With this lack of regard, she talks to people that she should not be talking to such as Lennie. “Well, I ain’t told nobody this before. I don’t like Curley. He ain’t a nice fella”(Steinbeck 89). Curley’s wife is talking to Lennie about why she does not like Curley. She says that he does not treat her nicely or spend the time with her like she would want. As a result of this, she finds the need to talk to other people like Lennie. This ends up being her biggest mistake she ever makes. Although she may not have known it, she continued to talk to the guys on the ranch because she felt very lonely, similarly to how George feels without
Lenster. One can see that once George puts Lennie to death, he falls into shambles. He feels lonely and sad because Lennie was his best friend, even though this may not have been directly addressed, it is very easy to detect this. Lennie accidentally killed Curley’s wife. He ran away because the men on the ranch were hunting him. When George found him first he decided it was best for him to kill Lennie. “The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger”(Steinbeck 106). Knowing that the others were about to kill Lennie, George did it instead. When he pulled the trigger a small hole opened up inside George’s heart. He began to feel the effects of what happened. He lost his best friend he ever had. Either way Lennie was going to die and George was going to lose his cousin, the person who he always had. Steinbeck wants the reader to understand how it is critical to have someone in life that can fill a position of loneliness, and how without that, life can be very hard. This book was very well written. Steinbeck was able show many messages about society. Also, he was able to show how life was during the Great Depression. The mix of these two make this book one of the best ever written.
Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck, is a book that can be analyzed and broken down into a vast majority of themes. One of the predominant themes found in this book is loneliness. Many characters in this book are affected by loneliness and they all demonstrate it in one way or another throughout the book. Examples of these characters are Curley’s Wife, Crooks, and Candy.
In his novel Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck depicts the essential loneliness of California ranch life in the 1930s. He illustrates how people are driven to find companionship. There were so many moments of loneliness and sadness throughout the novel, including many deaths. Following the deaths, they were very unexpected making the novel more intense and latch onto it more.
According to me, the definition of loneliness is a feeling that naturally occurs when there is no communication between you and someone else, or if you do not like to talk to anyone. This sometimes causes people to create rage (mentally, and physically). This can also sometimes cause death, for yourself or someone else. So in this book, what John Steinbeck is trying to say about loneliness is that, the people are lonely because of their physical features and this involves Candy, Curley’s Wife and Crooks. They all are lonely in their own ways, but have the same problem.
Curley?s wife spent her whole life trying to grab attention. She was always labeled and ignored by everyone on the ranch, an example of this is when George tells Lennie that she was troubled and to stay away from her. Curley?s wife was ignored and used from early on, when she was given false intentions on being a movie star.
Mother Theresa once said, "Loneliness is a man's worst poverty." Without friends and companions, people begin to suffer from loneliness and solitude (Dusenbury 38). Loneliness is an inevitable fact of life and cannot be avoided, as shown prevalent through each of the characters in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Each and every character in this novel exhibits loneliness. Lennie was isolated for being mentally handicapped, Candy was isolated for being old and disabled, Crooks was for being black, Curley's wife for being a woman, and George for having to care for Lennie and being unable to socialize with others because of Lennie's consistency of getting into trouble from town to town.
alone just to try make some money. This was a very bad period in the
Candy, the ranch handyman, lost his hand in an accident and worries about his future on the ranch. He fears that his age is making him useless and unwanted. Candy's age and handicap also contribute to his loneliness. Many of the men reject Candy because of these things and he fears that he will eventually come to the same end as his old dog. Candy is crushed by Lennie and George's dream to get their own piece of land and "live off the fatta the lan'". This dream lifted Candy's spirit and only set him up for a bigger disappointment. This made Candy not only a victim of loneliness, but also of disillusionment. He also feels the burden of loneliness and shows it by his relationship with his sheep dog. The dog, being described as “ancient”, “stinky”, and “half-blind”, had been in Candy’s life and his companion for a very long time and Candy had grown attached to it. He said he, "had him since he was a pup" and he used to "herd sheep with him." Once the other farmhands had finally gotten fed up with it and stated that the dog needed to be put out of its misery Candy was extremely reluctant to turn it over and let him go. After hearing the shot ring outside, all Candy could do was turn his face towards a wall and not look around. Certainly Candy found this dog to be a loyal companion of his and he had developed a strong relationship with it over the years, which helped him cope with his loneliness on the ranch. Whenever one is taking a deeper look at Of Mice and Men one will probably get a sense of how depressing the ranch really is. These are just a few examples of how different characters dealt with their loneliness.
People do not talk to her because she is a woman, she is avoided because of her gender, but they do not even think about how lonely that makes her. When the others tell her to go away because they do not want trouble, she says, “Think I don’t like to talk to somebody” (Steinbeck 77). She is avoided and rejected, and that would make anyone lonely. Curley’s Wife is also lonely because of her unhappy marriage with Curley. Curley is not a kind man, and she may be married to him, but she does not love him. Curley does not let her talk to others, and when she can only talk to Curley, she feels alone. When Lennie does not want to talk to her because he does not want to angry Curley, she says, “I can’t talk to nobody but Curley” (Steinbeck 87). She feels trapped by her terrible marriage. Curley’s Wife feels hopeless because of her marriage, and Candy is hopeless as
I have been analysing the novella ‘Of Mice and men’ by John Steinbeck, which was published in 1937. Steinbeck wrote the novel based on his own experiences as a bindle stiff in the 1920’s, around the same time when the great Wall Street crash happened, causing an immense depression in America. Throughout the novel he uses a recurring theme of loneliness in his writing, which may have reflected his own experiences at this time. This is evident in his writing by the way he describes the characters, setting and language in the novel.
The great and famous author john Steinbeck once said, “All great and precious things are lonely.” In the Steinbeck book Of Mice and Men, many of the characters show their loneliness in many different ways. Candy, Curley's wife, and Crooks all show perfect examples of how they are lonely. The characters in of mice and men show that loneliness is a problem that must be overcome in order to live a happy, fulfilled life.. all three of these characters know what is feels like to be lonely.
Candy is a old man who works on the ranch with the other guys, he’s the janitor. He has a dog that is old like he is which his name is Candy’s Dog. Candy is also missing his right hand. Candy is cool dude he does not like Curley’s Wife though. Candy starts to talk about his dream when he and Lennie are setting alone in the bunkard they stay and him and Lennie are talking and getting to know each other. Then Lennie starts to tell Candy about the farm that him and George was gonna get, Candy says to George and Lennie “ I’d make will and leave my share to you guys.” Candy also says to them “I ain't much good but i could cook and tend the chickens and hose the garden.” (Steinbeck 54-55) this quote proves that Candy wanted to work on the farm because he was willing to give up all that he had to go half with George and Lennie on the dream farm. As the story counties Candy was hoping to get the dream farm but Lennie kills Curley’s Wife. Candy finds her in the barn in some hay on her face dead. George walks in the barn he also sees Curley’s Wife dead with her neck broken. When their done observing the body they already knew it was Lennie who killed her everyone's starts to look for Lennie to kill him. George knows where he’s at he gets to him first and kills him. This is why the American Dream does not become
Candy is one of the older men at the ranch and he only has one hand. Candy’s job is to clean out the bunkhouses and I think that he is lonely from that because he is the only one who does that. Candy has an old dog that is like his only friend and he has had since it was a pup. When the men in the bunkhouse want to shoot Candy’s dog he gets a little angry because he likes the dog so much and it is his best friend. He later tells George that he wishes he would have shot the dog himself.
Friendship is the basic necessity every human needs in their life. Everyday this is proven in the real world, but this statement is also proven in the book, “Of Mice and Men”. Throughout the book we see many characters at crucial points and the ones who are able to bounce back are the ones who have relationships with others. In the book, "Of Mice and Men", we can see loneliness on the ranch is deeply portrayed through the characters Lennie, Crooks, and Curley's wife because of various different reasons.
Mother Teresa has once said, “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.” Loneliness is sadness because one has no friends or company or the quality of being unfrequented and remote. This quote relates to the theme of loneliness as portrayed by the characters in Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men. Although some view George and Lennie as victims of loneliness, Steinbeck suggests that they are Crooks and Curley’s wife because they both suffer from isolation.
During the Great Depression, migrant workers were subjected to low wages for hard labor and women were discriminated against and forced into traditional gender roles. Mentally impaired people were subjected to prejudice and were forced into mental hospitals so they would not reproduce. Three characters in the novel, Crooks, Curly's wife, and Candy, are examples of minorities during the Great Depression. Faced by relentless prejudice, the three characters experience a constant state of loneliness and a lack of trust in others. In John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, Lennie and George are migrant workers trying to survive until they can accomplish their shared dream.