Theme Of Loneliness In Of Mice And Men

Loneliness:

We all know that every one becomes lonely once in a while. But in Steinbeck's novella "Of Mice and Men” it shows the loneliness of ranch life in the early 1930's. It also shows how people are trying to find friendship with other ranchers in order to escape from loneliness. Imagine if you had nobody to talk to. Loneliness is the basic message here in this story.

Steinbeck uses different type of names and words such as the town near the ranch called “Soledad”. Which means loneliness in Spanish. Another word Steinbeck uses is the card game called "Solitaire" which means by ones self. George would normally play this card game by himself or either with Carlson and Slim. All men on the ranch are lonely including Curley’s wife even though she has Curely as his husband. But they have no communication at all. She is controlled by Curley making her lonely. He doesn’t let her speak to anybody. The men on the ranch are not afraid to talk to her, the reason they don’t talk to her is because Curley will start a fight because of jealousy. “Go back to the house” said Curley (pg. 78). She has no female friends on the ranch leading her only option to talking to men on the ranch. Curley is an aggressive guy and doesn’t like the fact that his wife is out of the house all the time. In the beginning of the book, Steinbeck introduces the idea of loneliness by how men work on ranches living temporary lives, with no goal in life. Although Lennie’s and George’s goal is to have their own land and have all different types of animals and of course “how I get to tend the rabbits” says Lennie (pg. 14).

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...I couldn’t do that. I had’ im too long”(pg.45). It shows that Candy was upset to kill his old dog that he had for a long time. He felt he should have shot his dog himself, not a stranger. When George shoot Lennie he felt terrible because it was his true friend and the only one he trusted. Because of this, he has to live the rest of his life alone and knowing that he killed his only friend he trusted. But I think he did the right thing. I think it shows their strong friendship. George did what was best for himself and for Lennie, which stopped all the trouble Lennie caused. Each character in the book is affected by loneliness in one way or another. Everybody needs to talk to someone in order to survive the loneliness. Each of the characters died due to loneliness. The message the book is giving out is every body needs a friend to talk to, no matter what race or sex.