Loneliness In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, loneliness is an evident theme and is often apparent in the characters’ lives. The place where the book takes place is called Soledad. In Spanish Soledad means lonely or lonely place, depending on how it is used. This is important in the story because loneliness affects each character in a different way. In this case, George and Lennie are alone together and share the same feelings of solitude, while Candy is old and alone. The stable boy, Crook, is immensely lonely because he is black and racism was still popular then. Curly’s wife is similarly as lonely as the other men on ranch, but experiences it differently. George and Lenny are very lonely in the novel. They can only depend on each other and neither of them have a place they can call home. A quote from the story that correlates with this statement is “Guys like us, that work on ranches are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They belong no

She is known as Curly’s wife throughout the entire novel. She is seen as an object by all of the men on the farm. No is there for her, not even her husband, Curly. Some quotes from the novel that exemplifies this are “ I get lonely”, she said. “You can talk to people, but I cant talk to nobody but Curly. Else he gets mad”(Steinbeck 87). This represents the theme of loneliness because Curly’s wife is not able to talk to anyone and that makes her feel desolate. Most people on the ranch are able to talk to one another, but her. She is the only female on the ranch, and all the men objectify her. They don’t see her as a human being, but simply an object that they can mess with. Curly does not respect her either. He ignores her needs and only sees her as property. This causes her to seek attention and company because she does not have any; she just continues to feel lonely because of how people see her and treat