English Essays
Of Mice And Men - Loneliness And Isolation
Loneliness is a common theme that runs through the novel Of Mice and Men. The novel, written by John Steinbeck, is a piece that clearly illustrates the loneliness and isolation of ranch life in the early 1930s. In addition to both the loneliness and isolation portrayed throughout the novel, yet another factor to the story are the various positions of power each individual character hold over one another. The power itself shown in the novel is also a good way to portray the loneliness, as it shows that because each character asserts one another’s power over each other, they cannot get close to each other, and cannot make any close relationships with one another. It is apparent that almost every character holds some power over another. A very good example of this would be the relationship between Lennie and George, in which it becomes apparent that George holds a great deal of power over Lennie, almost as if he was his parent. This is easily shown right at the beginning of the novel, when they both are at the clearing by the pool of water. George tells Lennie to not “drink so much” or else Lennie will be “sick like you was last night”.
Although their relationship appears to be one-sided, what with George holding an authority over Lennie, there still seems to be a friendship between them. It could quite possibly be this intricate friendship which keeps them together, travelling along the vast country looking for work.
The reason for George and Lennie’s need to travel looking for work is quite simply The Great Depression, a devastating even which lead the united states into the unforgiving talons of unemployment and bankruptcy. What happened, put simply, was that the stock market crashed. The prices of various stocks fell incredibly, and people were selling up at a rapid rate. Companies lost thousands of dollars, and were sent into bankruptcy. Many united state citizens were left unemployed, and many couldn’t make enough money to pay the rent, so many were also left homeless. The stock market crash itself occurred on October 29, 1929, which is also known as Black Tuesday. The Great Depression didn’t end until around the late 1930s, but it took a while for the united state citizens to return to the lives they once had, and some couldn’t do that at all.
In addition to The Great Depression, yet another event unfolded in the United States, which was known as The Dust Bowl. This ecological catastrophe occurred due to poor irrigation methods, as well as overworking of the farm land. It caused a great draught which meant big problems for civilians, especially farmers. Many were forced to sell up their farms, and to leave to look for somewhere else, preferably somewhere with work. In addition some residents of the Plains, in especially Kansas and Oklahoma, many united state citizens fell prey to illnesses and death from dust pneumonia and the effects of malnutrition.
Not only is the novel itself set in a time of grand distress and upset, but it is cleverly set in a place which has a hidden meaning in its name. It is quite possible that this was simply incidental, but in my personal opinion it seems to coincidental to be pure chance. What I am talking about is Soledad, in which the novel is set. It is a little known fact that Soledad is short for the towns’ full name, which is ‘Nuestra Senora de Soledad’ which, even more interestingly, is Spanish for ‘Our Lady of Loneliness. Soledad is the town which is closest to the ranch, and is where the ranch hands often go to spend their stake on cat houses. The town itself is filled with lonely solitary people, who have all been affected by The Great Depression and The Dust Bowl. When George and Lennie come into the picture, they are just another addition to the people already in the town, bringing along with them their own personal despair and loneliness. However, what sets them different from the others is the fact they have one thing that nobody else has. They have each other.
Near the beginning of the novel, George tells Lennie a story of their dream. To begin this story, he starts off by saying “Guys like us, that live on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world”. By saying this, George means that if it were not for him having Lennie as a companion, he and Lennie would be alone, with no friends or companions, like all the other migrant workers struggling to survive during the tough times everyone was going through. Without Lennie, George would have nobody else, but he is fortunate to have somebody by his side. Looking at this, maybe it can be believed that Lennie and George aren’t as lonely as they would first appear. However it could be argued that due to the fact George and Lennie are extremely different and don’t appear to be on the same mental wavelength. Thinking of this, it can be said that George must be an extremely lonely character, and it is possible to decide that he himself must be incredibly lonely, mainly due to the fact that he has to baby sit Lennie, someone who he cannot relate to or even have a decent adult conversation with. Maybe this makes his situation worse for him, or even more depressing.
On the other hand, in contrast to the loneliness which George must feel, Lennie doesn’t seem to be able to even comprehend the idea of loneliness, probably because he has, and always has had, George, and in his mind, that’s all he feels he’ll ever need in his life. I’m sure many believe that because of his child-like mentality and general ignorance about loneliness, Lennie cannot possibly feel lonely. However, if you look closely into the character of Lennie, it can be argued strongly that even though he has George, Lennie feels lonely and craves some other kind of relationship, a kind of comfort which George cannot give him. A good example of this would be his obsession to “tend the rabbits”. He is completely infatuated with the idea of looking after the rabbits that he and George will have on their dream farm. It captivates his mind, almost completely. Lennie also seems to get aggravated easy, though he is a very gentle person, seen when he crushes Curly’s hand or when he shouts at Curly’s wife before killing her.
In addition to the isolation felt by George, and quite possibly Lennie, Crooks, Candy and Curley's wife all feel some form of loneliness and isolation due to suffering injustices such as discrimination and prejudice. They learn to cope with their loneliness through their interest in Lennie and George's friendship. In some ways they are even jealous of their friendship.
Crooks is a black man that experiences isolation because the society in which he resides is racist. Crooks is rejected from every kind of group of people and cannot socially interact with others, similar to Lennie, who can’t socially interact correctly because of his supposed mental-disability.
"Cause I'm black. They play cards in there, but I can't play because I'm Black. They say I stink." Crooks loneliness results from rejection; others treat him unfairly because he is different from them because he is black. Crooks isn’t allowed to join in daily events with white people such as card games. He is treated unfairly and therefore acts the same way toward the white people who have offended him.
Crooks is fascinated by the strength of the friendship of Lennie and George, especially how close they are. Crooks said, "Well, s'pose, jus' s'pose he don't come back. What'll you do then?" Crooks asks these questions because he does not have any friends, and wouldn’t know how losing them unexpectedly would feel. He was curious and envious, about the friendship of Lennie and George, noticing that Lennie isn’t all there, he takes advantage of this situation to “torture” him mentally, to make him feel better himself and ease his own pain of having others reject him. He also does this to ease his jealousy towards the friendship Lennie has with George, but that he himself will probably never have.
He is striving to achieve sympathy and understanding from others. Crooks would probably work for pretty much nothing if it meant he could communicate with others. He even offers his services to Candy to work on their “dream ranch” to join in on the friendship and dream shared by Lennie and George, in order to leave behind him his lonely life. However he quickly takes back his offer soon after.
When Crooks was much younger, he played with other children, which is probably the closest to friendship he has ever come. Even that was taken away from him when his father told him to stop playing with them because he was black and they were white. It would appear that Crooks does not have a lot, and whenever he has had something good going for him, it is snatched away from him, more than usually because he is black. Crooks suffers a lot of isolation and is outcast just because of the colour of his skin.
Candy, similarly to Crooks, is an outcast. This is because of his age and his physical disability which make him different from the rest of the men on the ranch.However, he always tries to communicate with them as much as he can, but they often cannot be bothered with him, usually just shrugging him off as an “old man”.
Candy has one true friend in the world, his dog, which he cannot even talk to. The dog is Candy’s only source of friendship and companionship. This sets him aside from the other workers on the ranch who have no friends or companions whatsoever. However, when his dog dies, he has to look elsewhere for friendship. He hopes that he can find some source of friendship in George and Lennie.
Because of his age and disability, he feels useless, stating that “They’ll call me purty soon”. Candy has it stuck in his mind that nobody wants to be friends with him because of this disability. Eventually, he tries to find friendship by attempting to join the dream of George and Lennie. Candy offered his services to become a part of George and Lennie's friendship and dream, this is one of Candy's desperate attempts to find a place in society and meaning in life by making himself useful to someone, by proposing the various things he could do to show that his is in fact useful and could bring a lot in the dream as well and the friendship, saying that he “could cook and tend the chickens and hoe the garden some”.
Additionally, Candy’s dog has a strong relevance to Candy himself, as it is portrayed as ‘old’ and ‘useless’. This could be reflecting the way Candy feels, and could be metaphorical for Candy himself in general, which emphasis his isolation due to his age and disability.
We also assume that Candy has never been married, and we learn that he has no friends or relatives. Candy is alone in the world, with nobody but his dog for comfort. When his dog is shot, Candy feels as though a part of him has been taken away, making him feel even lonelier, and possibly angry.
In contrast to the other characters, Curley's Wife's loneliness has a different source; her husband causes it.
Even though Curley's wife is mentioned a lot, nobody seems to asks what her name is. We never find out, not once, in the whole novel. Nobody wants to talk her because people are afraid of Curley; he is jealous and would start a fight with anyone who tried approaching her. She does not like Curley, and says this herself. In addition he doesn’t talk to her at all, and there's no one in her life with which she can share her feelings.
Unfortunately, because she is Curley's Wife, most of the ranchers avoid talking to her, and she notices often that she is rejected and ignored and tends to asks them several times what is wrong with her, and why doesn’t she have a right to communicate like everyone else does, stating, "What's the matter with me? Ain't I got a right to talk to nobody?"
She dresses the way she does (with her large amount of make-up), to gain the attention of the ranchers and to sooth her loneliness. She notices that Lennie finds her “purty” and tries to talk to him and get close to him several times.
She most likely feels extremely insecure as well, finding the need to have admiration from others on the ranch to make her feel better about herself. It could be because of the way she has been treated by Curly, her self esteem has taken a hit, helping mould her into the woman she is.
She is obviously very desperate if she wants to talk to someone as dumb as Lennie, "her words tumbled out" when she talks to Lennie as though she were afraid that someone was going to take him away from her "she hurried before her listener could be taken away from her", thanks to this sentence we understand that she doesn't have the chance to talk to people often, and is trying to say as much as she can, about the emotions that have been building up inside of her "she went on with her story before she could be interrupted". She also makes sure that Lennie is listening to her when she speaks "You listenin'?", since she is not used to talking to anyone, she wants to be sure that what she is saying is being heard clearly. She doesn’t want her listeners attention to be take anyway by anyone or anything. His might show she is very selfish and big headed, in the fact that she believes she’s the only important person who anyone could listen to, but this is just a way of clouding her sense of not being able to communicate with others.
There is no one character who suffers the most isolation and loneliness. The main characters all have a fairly equal balance of it. It would seem that they almost live off of each other’s isolation and loneliness, and it helps keep them all in balance with one another.
I believe that humans were made to live in society, and therefore all people are (in some way or another) driven towards others, which shows it is it a natural instinct to seek friendship and companionship. When humans find it, it seems they are truly are happy.
Of mice and men is riddled with isolation and loneliness, and it is portrayed though every characters, though some more than others. It teaches us that friendship and human interaction are two valuable things, and that that we much treasure them as it keeps us away from loneliness.
Liana Brady
Although their relationship appears to be one-sided, what with George holding an authority over Lennie, there still seems to be a friendship between them. It could quite possibly be this intricate friendship which keeps them together, travelling along the vast country looking for work.
The reason for George and Lennie’s need to travel looking for work is quite simply The Great Depression, a devastating even which lead the united states into the unforgiving talons of unemployment and bankruptcy. What happened, put simply, was that the stock market crashed. The prices of various stocks fell incredibly, and people were selling up at a rapid rate. Companies lost thousands of dollars, and were sent into bankruptcy. Many united state citizens were left unemployed, and many couldn’t make enough money to pay the rent, so many were also left homeless. The stock market crash itself occurred on October 29, 1929, which is also known as Black Tuesday. The Great Depression didn’t end until around the late 1930s, but it took a while for the united state citizens to return to the lives they once had, and some couldn’t do that at all.
In addition to The Great Depression, yet another event unfolded in the United States, which was known as The Dust Bowl. This ecological catastrophe occurred due to poor irrigation methods, as well as overworking of the farm land. It caused a great draught which meant big problems for civilians, especially farmers. Many were forced to sell up their farms, and to leave to look for somewhere else, preferably somewhere with work. In addition some residents of the Plains, in especially Kansas and Oklahoma, many united state citizens fell prey to illnesses and death from dust pneumonia and the effects of malnutrition.
Not only is the novel itself set in a time of grand distress and upset, but it is cleverly set in a place which has a hidden meaning in its name. It is quite possible that this was simply incidental, but in my personal opinion it seems to coincidental to be pure chance. What I am talking about is Soledad, in which the novel is set. It is a little known fact that Soledad is short for the towns’ full name, which is ‘Nuestra Senora de Soledad’ which, even more interestingly, is Spanish for ‘Our Lady of Loneliness. Soledad is the town which is closest to the ranch, and is where the ranch hands often go to spend their stake on cat houses. The town itself is filled with lonely solitary people, who have all been affected by The Great Depression and The Dust Bowl. When George and Lennie come into the picture, they are just another addition to the people already in the town, bringing along with them their own personal despair and loneliness. However, what sets them different from the others is the fact they have one thing that nobody else has. They have each other.
Near the beginning of the novel, George tells Lennie a story of their dream. To begin this story, he starts off by saying “Guys like us, that live on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world”. By saying this, George means that if it were not for him having Lennie as a companion, he and Lennie would be alone, with no friends or companions, like all the other migrant workers struggling to survive during the tough times everyone was going through. Without Lennie, George would have nobody else, but he is fortunate to have somebody by his side. Looking at this, maybe it can be believed that Lennie and George aren’t as lonely as they would first appear. However it could be argued that due to the fact George and Lennie are extremely different and don’t appear to be on the same mental wavelength. Thinking of this, it can be said that George must be an extremely lonely character, and it is possible to decide that he himself must be incredibly lonely, mainly due to the fact that he has to baby sit Lennie, someone who he cannot relate to or even have a decent adult conversation with. Maybe this makes his situation worse for him, or even more depressing.
On the other hand, in contrast to the loneliness which George must feel, Lennie doesn’t seem to be able to even comprehend the idea of loneliness, probably because he has, and always has had, George, and in his mind, that’s all he feels he’ll ever need in his life. I’m sure many believe that because of his child-like mentality and general ignorance about loneliness, Lennie cannot possibly feel lonely. However, if you look closely into the character of Lennie, it can be argued strongly that even though he has George, Lennie feels lonely and craves some other kind of relationship, a kind of comfort which George cannot give him. A good example of this would be his obsession to “tend the rabbits”. He is completely infatuated with the idea of looking after the rabbits that he and George will have on their dream farm. It captivates his mind, almost completely. Lennie also seems to get aggravated easy, though he is a very gentle person, seen when he crushes Curly’s hand or when he shouts at Curly’s wife before killing her.
In addition to the isolation felt by George, and quite possibly Lennie, Crooks, Candy and Curley's wife all feel some form of loneliness and isolation due to suffering injustices such as discrimination and prejudice. They learn to cope with their loneliness through their interest in Lennie and George's friendship. In some ways they are even jealous of their friendship.
Crooks is a black man that experiences isolation because the society in which he resides is racist. Crooks is rejected from every kind of group of people and cannot socially interact with others, similar to Lennie, who can’t socially interact correctly because of his supposed mental-disability.
"Cause I'm black. They play cards in there, but I can't play because I'm Black. They say I stink." Crooks loneliness results from rejection; others treat him unfairly because he is different from them because he is black. Crooks isn’t allowed to join in daily events with white people such as card games. He is treated unfairly and therefore acts the same way toward the white people who have offended him.
Crooks is fascinated by the strength of the friendship of Lennie and George, especially how close they are. Crooks said, "Well, s'pose, jus' s'pose he don't come back. What'll you do then?" Crooks asks these questions because he does not have any friends, and wouldn’t know how losing them unexpectedly would feel. He was curious and envious, about the friendship of Lennie and George, noticing that Lennie isn’t all there, he takes advantage of this situation to “torture” him mentally, to make him feel better himself and ease his own pain of having others reject him. He also does this to ease his jealousy towards the friendship Lennie has with George, but that he himself will probably never have.
He is striving to achieve sympathy and understanding from others. Crooks would probably work for pretty much nothing if it meant he could communicate with others. He even offers his services to Candy to work on their “dream ranch” to join in on the friendship and dream shared by Lennie and George, in order to leave behind him his lonely life. However he quickly takes back his offer soon after.
When Crooks was much younger, he played with other children, which is probably the closest to friendship he has ever come. Even that was taken away from him when his father told him to stop playing with them because he was black and they were white. It would appear that Crooks does not have a lot, and whenever he has had something good going for him, it is snatched away from him, more than usually because he is black. Crooks suffers a lot of isolation and is outcast just because of the colour of his skin.
Candy, similarly to Crooks, is an outcast. This is because of his age and his physical disability which make him different from the rest of the men on the ranch.However, he always tries to communicate with them as much as he can, but they often cannot be bothered with him, usually just shrugging him off as an “old man”.
Candy has one true friend in the world, his dog, which he cannot even talk to. The dog is Candy’s only source of friendship and companionship. This sets him aside from the other workers on the ranch who have no friends or companions whatsoever. However, when his dog dies, he has to look elsewhere for friendship. He hopes that he can find some source of friendship in George and Lennie.
Because of his age and disability, he feels useless, stating that “They’ll call me purty soon”. Candy has it stuck in his mind that nobody wants to be friends with him because of this disability. Eventually, he tries to find friendship by attempting to join the dream of George and Lennie. Candy offered his services to become a part of George and Lennie's friendship and dream, this is one of Candy's desperate attempts to find a place in society and meaning in life by making himself useful to someone, by proposing the various things he could do to show that his is in fact useful and could bring a lot in the dream as well and the friendship, saying that he “could cook and tend the chickens and hoe the garden some”.
Additionally, Candy’s dog has a strong relevance to Candy himself, as it is portrayed as ‘old’ and ‘useless’. This could be reflecting the way Candy feels, and could be metaphorical for Candy himself in general, which emphasis his isolation due to his age and disability.
We also assume that Candy has never been married, and we learn that he has no friends or relatives. Candy is alone in the world, with nobody but his dog for comfort. When his dog is shot, Candy feels as though a part of him has been taken away, making him feel even lonelier, and possibly angry.
In contrast to the other characters, Curley's Wife's loneliness has a different source; her husband causes it.
Even though Curley's wife is mentioned a lot, nobody seems to asks what her name is. We never find out, not once, in the whole novel. Nobody wants to talk her because people are afraid of Curley; he is jealous and would start a fight with anyone who tried approaching her. She does not like Curley, and says this herself. In addition he doesn’t talk to her at all, and there's no one in her life with which she can share her feelings.
Unfortunately, because she is Curley's Wife, most of the ranchers avoid talking to her, and she notices often that she is rejected and ignored and tends to asks them several times what is wrong with her, and why doesn’t she have a right to communicate like everyone else does, stating, "What's the matter with me? Ain't I got a right to talk to nobody?"
She dresses the way she does (with her large amount of make-up), to gain the attention of the ranchers and to sooth her loneliness. She notices that Lennie finds her “purty” and tries to talk to him and get close to him several times.
She most likely feels extremely insecure as well, finding the need to have admiration from others on the ranch to make her feel better about herself. It could be because of the way she has been treated by Curly, her self esteem has taken a hit, helping mould her into the woman she is.
She is obviously very desperate if she wants to talk to someone as dumb as Lennie, "her words tumbled out" when she talks to Lennie as though she were afraid that someone was going to take him away from her "she hurried before her listener could be taken away from her", thanks to this sentence we understand that she doesn't have the chance to talk to people often, and is trying to say as much as she can, about the emotions that have been building up inside of her "she went on with her story before she could be interrupted". She also makes sure that Lennie is listening to her when she speaks "You listenin'?", since she is not used to talking to anyone, she wants to be sure that what she is saying is being heard clearly. She doesn’t want her listeners attention to be take anyway by anyone or anything. His might show she is very selfish and big headed, in the fact that she believes she’s the only important person who anyone could listen to, but this is just a way of clouding her sense of not being able to communicate with others.
There is no one character who suffers the most isolation and loneliness. The main characters all have a fairly equal balance of it. It would seem that they almost live off of each other’s isolation and loneliness, and it helps keep them all in balance with one another.
I believe that humans were made to live in society, and therefore all people are (in some way or another) driven towards others, which shows it is it a natural instinct to seek friendship and companionship. When humans find it, it seems they are truly are happy.
Of mice and men is riddled with isolation and loneliness, and it is portrayed though every characters, though some more than others. It teaches us that friendship and human interaction are two valuable things, and that that we much treasure them as it keeps us away from loneliness.
Liana Brady