Loneliness In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

In John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men it is interesting how many of Steinbeck’s characters suffer from the same exact thing. Many novels will have a theme or a recurring subject that is placed upon a few of the characters. John Steinbeck however chooses to allow the recurring subject of loneliness to effect multiple characters deeply to give it a strong presence in the novel. Several characters from the novel Of Mice and Men deal with loneliness.

There are many characters in Steinbeck’s novel that portray loneliness. Some characters may be a little more obvious and others may be a little more discrete. For example, George stated,”God you’re a lot of trouble… I could get along so easy and so nice if I didn't have you on my tail. I could live so

While talking to lennie, Crooks stated,”S’pose you couldn't go in the bunk house and play rummy ‘cause you was black. How’d you like that? S’pose you had to sit out here and read books... books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody to be near him… I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick… i was talkin’ about myself.” (Steinbeck 72-73). In this portion of the story Steinbeck allows crooks true feelings to be shown to the reader. Crooks clearly reveals that he feels lonely due to the other characters ostracizing him from the bunkhouse because he's African-American. Although he was the most obvious, he is not the only help that suffers from loneliness. Candy told George and Lennie, “ I'd make it will and leave my share to you guys in case I kick off, ‘cause I ain't got no relatives nor nothing.” while talking about the ranch. This quote shows that Candy has no one. The closest thing that he has to a companion is his dog and even then Carlson put his dog down. Once his dog was put down Candy truly then had absolutely no one. Crooks and Candy both have different reasons and situations yet they both are