Ranch Workers In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

When George said “ranch workers are the loneliest guys in the world” what he meant was most ranch workers have no family or friends. George and Lennie defy’s that statement because after Lennie’s aunt Clara died they didn’t have no family or somewhere they can actually stay, that’s why they're ranch workers. But at the same time George and Lennie still have each other to turn to, most guys are all alone moving from one ranch to another. The lifestyle of a ranch worker is loneliness and isolated. The living conditions for a ranch worker is very bad “the bed is made of long burlap sacks stuffed with straw”. This obviously mean that the ranch owner don’t really care about the living conditions he make the ranch worker stay in.
George and Lennie

has a unique relationship because they’re not family but they’re still so close. George and Lennie are kind of a coalition against the world. This is because before Lennie’s aunt Clara died she took care of him and George was around a lot so after she died George felt it was kind of his responsibility to take care of Lennie, also Lennie kept following him around. So George tries to assuage Lennie’s life and Lennie also stated “because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you”. What he meant by that was as I said before most ranch workers have no family or friend’s or just someone they can talk to. This is why George and Lennie’s relationship is so unique because they have someone to talk to even if sometimes Lennie drive’s George crazy or even in George drive’s Lennie crazy. It’s also unique because it doesn’t matter how bad George treat Lennie he always forgive him, but this could have something to do with Lennie’s mental disability which make him tend to forget things. For example: George told Lennie to jump in the river as a junk and Lennie did it, but Lennie started to drown so George and a couple of guys got him out but Lennie was so happy to be out the river that he forgot George was the one that told him to jump in.
Before George had Lennie in his life his dream was to own his own farm and just settle down, but every since Lennie showed up the dream has kind of altered. Lennie wants the same dream but wants rabbits. Rabbits kind of make Lennie feel like he’s not alone. But Lennie doesn’t know his own strength so he tend to kill animals by petting them to hard. Lennie’s aunt Clara use to give him mice but he killed them all. Lennie has a strong obsession of petting soft things but he always tend to kill them. Since Lennie is so callow when the mice die he get mad and forget that he actually killed it.
Crook has a crooked back so his name is Crook and he is the stable hand who takes care of the horses and lives by himself because he is the only black man on the ranch. He is not allowed in any of the bunk houses because he is black. Crook said to Lennie “you got no right to come in my room.This here’s my room. Nobody got any right in here but me”. He said that because the other rancher’s did not allow him in there room so he didn’t want Lennie in there. During this time slavery was abolished but racism was strong. The other ranchers also treated Curley’s wife mean. She kind of had the “eye” for mostly every guy on the ranch which made people view her bad. Nobody would talk to her she barely talked to Curley and he was her husband. Most of the time he was looking for her or she was looking for him but at the end they always seem to never find each other.
Candy is another worker that’s lonely.

He is a old ranch worker who lost one of his hands in a machine. The only reason he is still there is because he lost his hand, and the boss just give him a easy job because he feels bad. Candy has a old dog that can barely walk or see. He is Candy’s best friend, he had him every since he was a puppy. Without that dog Candy is lonely and has no one to talk to. Candy overhears George and Lennie talking about their dream and Candy instantly wants to join. Candy offers 250 dollars to put to the farm which is 600. Then he said he was going to put more and more to which at the end was most of the money. George couldn’t say no to that because between him and Lennie all they had was 10 dollars. If they wanted to make that dream reality George had no choice but to accept. Candy says "S'pose I went in with you guys. Tha's three hundred an' fifty bucks I'd put in. I ain't much good, but I could cook and tend the chickens and hoe the garden some. How'd that be?". So Candy kind of tell George he will do more than pay for more than half for the dream but he will help out around the house. After that George really couldn't say no to that so then George said "In one month. Right smack in one month. Know what I'm gon'ta do? I'm gon'ta write to them old people that owns he place that we'll take it." So at this point the dream doesn’t seem like a dream to George he’s going to make an offer for the house. But Candy is so willing to put all his money and time into this because the only reason he’s still there as I said before is that his hand got caught in machine. He would leave but he wouldn’t get hired anywhere else because of his injury. No one really talk to him because he’s old and has a old stinky dog. So when he heard about that dream he had no regrets of putting his life earned savings into someone else's dream if that mean he can leave that

farm.
Candy also was so willing to because Carlson killed his dog, his best friend. Candy had a special relationship with that dog and now that the dog is gone he’s really lonely. This kind of foreshadowed the death of Lennie. Carlson shot the dog right in the back of the head so he wouldn’t see it coming. That’s also what George did, he shot Lennie right in the back of the head. But a stranger killed Candy’s dog, Lennie’s closest companion killed him. Candy did regret not killing the dog himself because he would of did it out of love not out of anger. This is what George meant when he said ranch workers are the loneliest guys in the world.