How does Steinbeck present the theme of loneliness in ‘Of Mice and Men’? Essay

‘Of Mice and Men’ by John Steinbeck, is set in mid-1930s America during the depression. This depression came as a shock to America after the 1920s ‘boom-time’. The inspiration that Steinbeck drew upon is the troublesome times people were living through at that time. However, the characters in the novel are lucky in that they are working on a prosperous farm, despite millions actually being out of work at the time. In this essay, I will attempt to bring out key points referring to loneliness and how it affects the characters in the story. The novel is set in a place called Soledad, which incidentally means loneliness. The two central characters in the novel are George Milton and Lennie Small. The first chapter helps us get to know the characters well. George and Lennie are two workers who move from ranch to ranch in search of work and good pay. We know early on that they are currently between jobs, and are hitching lifts to their next job. They had to move on from the last ranch because of Lennie having touched a girl’s dress, so they are on the run. George is quick-witted and intelligent. He is also very cautious â€Å"Lennie. You gonna be sick like you was last night.†. George is ‘small and quick, dark of face,’ also with ‘restless eyes’ this again stresses the point that he is cautious and weary of other people. Lennie however is very childlike – â€Å"Look, George. Look what I done.† – Like a small child, Lennie is trying to impress George. One point emphasised frequently through the book is, despite his terror of violence, he is a man of great physical strength and is often compared to an animal – â€Å"He stood crying, his fist lost in Lennie’s paw.† In many ways, George and Lennie are the two halves of a single person, one of them is strong while the other is weak. The two refer to both George – strong mind, physically weak – and Lennie – physically strong, but mentally weak. Lennie is George’s ‘shadow’, he does as he is told by George – whether in his best interests or not – â€Å"You tol’ me to, George,† he said miserably.’ George and Lennie care for each other as if they were family. George plays the parent figure in Lennie’s life, he has taken on the responsibility for Lennie partly out of pity, partly out of affection, and partly for companionship. They actually need and depend upon one another – â€Å"you got me and I got you† – as Lennie keeps saying. They share a dream to own a patch of land and it is this that keeps them going in the bad times. Other men may also have had this dream, but perhaps don’t have as m uch faith in it as George and Lennie do. Candy is near to the end of his useful life on the farm and knows he has little to look forward to. Candy’s only companion is his dog, we are told Candy has raised him since he was a pup. When the dog is killed by Carlson, Candy is silent almost as if his soul was in the dog, so when the dog is destroyed, Candy is too. He is offered a new pup by Slim, but this is no consolation as he has lost a lifelong friend. Candy is easily hurt by Carlson’s willingness to ‘murder’ his pet â€Å"Le’s get it over with,† Despite his emotional turmoil early in the book, Candy is saved from insanity by George and Lennie. He is let into their dream and he is just as enthusiastic about it as Lennie! â€Å"How much they want for a place like that?† The loss of his dog is not the first he has had to deal with. ‘He scratched the stump of his wrist nervously. â€Å"I got hurt four years ago,† This shows he has only one hand, and has had to come to terms with the loss of something perhaps more important than a pet. Crooks is a ‘special case’. He is a literate black cripple who tends horses on the ranch. This makes him one of the loners in the novel. Because he is black, he has a room of his own – but with manure right outside the window, he is not living in luxury. His significant possessions are his books. Whereas the ranch hands generally read magazines, he has the time – and the intelligence – to read proper books. Literature, after all, educates us, allows us to enter into other worlds, and fills our time profitably. He says, â€Å"A guy sets alone out here at night, maybe readin’ books or thinkin'† The books actually show that Crooks is not inferior. If anything, they show that he has a superior intelligence. However, Crooks indicates the books also reflect his loneliness – he would like someone to talk to. So they also show how he is different and apart from the other workers on the ranch. He has long been the victim of oppressive violence and prejudice, this in itself leaves him separate from the rest of the group. Despite the persecutions, the other characters seem to secretly admire him â€Å"Jesus, how that nigger can pitch shoes.† Then Slim replies â€Å"He’s plently good,† although they never complement him when he is around. Crooks does have rights, but many of them are abused and no-one does anything to enforce them. Crooks has trouble fitting in and making friends because of restrictions imposed on him by the boss – he is only allowed in the bunkhouse at Christmas. Crooks’ character is bored with life and only wishes to be equal with white people, like he seemed to be as a child, and he only now realises why his father despised his white friends as a child. Crooks is isolated from the other ranch hands because he is different. He copes with it by keeping a distance between himself and the other hands but he is drawn into the dream of working on George and Lennie’s farm. When Lennie is with him when the others are in town Crooks is talking about his views on companionship. Crooks tries to talk to Lennie about the loneliness he is feeling caused by being black, but Lennie is too busy thinking about George to listen to him. So Crooks ends up teasing him about George not coming back. Curley’s wife is seen as a possession – something belonging to Curley – rather than a person in her own right. She is just described as a tart, but little more is known about her. It could be because of this that she enjoys teasing Lennie and the others on the ranch; she knows Curley does not approve and it is a way of getting her own sense of being an individual back. She wants to be noticed as a person, her shattered dream of being a movie star is shared with Lennie as they grow a short friendship. She is described as a â€Å"temptress†, â€Å"piece of jail-bait† and a â€Å"tart†. She is portrayed as an evil character, although it is also emphasised that this is no fault of her own. She is blamed by Candy for the end of his own dreams, even though she was also a victim – after Lennie unintentionally killed her. Being lonely she turned to Lennie for companionship, but his love of petting soft things ends in her demise. Lennie and Curley’s Wife are, with the exception of Crooks, the most lonely and misunderstood characters in the book. In chapter five, they meet in the barn after Lennie has accidentally killed his puppy. Curley’s Wife approaches him, but he knows he should not be talking to her, after all George said she was a bad person, â€Å"Well, I ain’t supposed to talk to you or nothing.†. He reveals the dead puppy, and she begins her slow process of seduction, by consoling him – telling him it was not his fault. Then she tells him about her dreams, her life story and how she was cheated out of a movie star career by her â€Å"ol’ lady†. It changes from seduction to a friendship â€Å"because she had confided in him, she moved closer to Lennie and sat beside him† – so now there is a one way trust between the two, Curley’s Wife already having confided in Lennie, but he is still worried about what George might think – a nd the possibility of George not letting him tend the rabbits. But Lennie tells her he likes soft things, and she allows him to stroke her hair. She has fallen into a trap, and it seems she will suffer the same fate as the other creatures Lennie has petted. She does. Eventually killed by her own loneliness, she dies violently at the same strong hands as the mice, the dog and Curley’s hand. Candy then stumbles upon the body, he knows it was Lennie and realises the trio’s dream is finished. He gets George who knows he must reach Lennie before Curley and the other ranch-hands, so he can help Lennie escape the violence that would ensue if he didn’t catch him in time. An alternate way of life is sought by the characters, motivated by their loneliness, this is one of the reasons they drift from ranch-to-ranch, they are continually searching. They do this, often without knowing what they are really looking for. Characters are also lonely because of something within themselves, something that almost seems to make their loneliness inevitable. Different characters seek comfort in different things – for Candy it is his dog; for George and Lennie it is each other; for Crooks it is his pride and skill at things like pitching horseshoes. For them, it is an unending journey moving from place to place, the same jobs, the same routines, different people. Sadly, they never stay in one place long enough to make friends or settle down. Many dream of getting a ranch of their own, but it will never happen as long as they take their pay every month and go into town and waste all they have earned on one night of recreation.