Of Mice and Men

American poet and educator Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once remarked: “Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.” John Steinbeck's novel, Of Mice and Men, is a story in which a dominating idea of unavoidable loneliness prevails. This is shown by a particular passage in the piece: “A guy needs somebody to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya, a guy gets lonely an' he gets sick." Of Mice and Men is full of characters like this, which can not to find a way out of their lonesome lives. The loneliness in this story builds and builds and never is allowed to escape. By never allowing its escape, Steinbeck successfully forms a solid backing for the characters and events in his novel.

Lennie's loneliness mainly comes from the fact that he is both developmentally disabled and physically overbearing. His disability sometimes causes others at the ranch to turn away from him; even to the point of thinking he is "cuckoo." Since Lennie cannot think as quickly as the other men, he is often put aside and cut off from them. He is unable to take an active part in conversations because George, Lennie's best friend and travelling companion, is the only one who can understand him. In George’s act of killing Lennie, his only friend, he actually ensures his own continued loneliness.

Lennie is regularly off in his own dream world and is continually lost in his thoughts with dreams of the farm which he and George someday hope to buy. As a result, Lennie is unab...

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... what he has to do.

Of Mice and Men is a powerful work and one that really kept me thinking throughout. Many of us take advantage of the fact that we have a support system in our lives of friends and family, but many of the characters in this book did not have these things, they suffered under the weight of their own loneliness. Steinbeck’s powerful writing style and the deep meaning of his story made this my favorite book on the booklist, and was also the book I spent the most time thinking about in relation to my own life. How would it be to have no friends and family? How long can a person survive on their own before losing part of their sanity? Steinbeck creates a very though provoking storyline and relatable (although sad) characters that made me invest more as a reader. Overall, I feel this was an excellent and enriching reading experience.