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How Does Steinbeck Present The Theme Of Loneliness In Of Mice And Men

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Everyone can feel loneliness or isolation in their life. In Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men two men, Lennie and George, travel to a farm, full of isolation for work, in hopes of raising enough money to pursue their dreams. Lennie is a big man with mental disabilities who does not know his own strength and George is his friend who helps take care of him. On the farm Lennie accidentally kills Curley's wife which ends up also killing their dream. Steinbeck’s use of dialogue, word choice, and characterization develops his belief that isolation and loneliness is caused by both personal choice and social barriers depending on the character.
In “Of Mice and Men” Crooks is isolated from the other men on the farm because of his race and his crooked back. …show more content…

One of the main reasons Candy is alone is due to his age. He is first referred to as a “stoop-shouldered old man .”(18). He is referred to as old because that's how everyone on the farm sees him as. He is useless because he lost his one of his hands and his old age prevents him from contributing as much as the other men. His age is a social barrier that keeps him isolated. Another reason he is alone is because of his dog, “Why’n’t you get Candy to shoot his old dog and give him one of the pups to raise up? I can smell that dog a mile away. Got no teeth, damn near blind, can’t eat. Candy feeds him milk. He cant chew nothing else.” (36). No one wants to be near him because of his dog. Keeping his dog is a personal choice that keeps him isolated because he can just shoot the dog and then he won't be as isolated.
Dialogue, characterization, and word choice develops Steinbeck’s belief that loneliness and isolation is caused by both personal choice and social barriers. Crooks is lonely because of his race and back. Curley's wife is isolated because of her relationship to Curley, and Candy is lonely because of his old age and old dog. Nowadays people can be isolated because of the same kind of social barriers or by their own personal choice. Personal decisions and social barriers can both contribute to

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In Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men the main theme is Loneliness and Isolation. Steinbeck really creates an image in your head of the life of the migrated ranch men. He hides the fact the characters are isolated in the language he uses. The town that the ranch is close to is called “Soledad” which means loneliness in spanish. In latin “Solitaire” (the card game the men play) means alone and isolated.

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In the book of Mice And Men the theme of loneliness plays a major role in the book and there’s 3 characters that relate to this theme, For example Curley’s wife. Curley’s wife quotes “i get lonely, you can talk to people, but I can't talk to people but curley”. This quote makes a lot of sense because Curley’s wife met Curley at riverside dance palace and after accusing her mother of throwing a note in the trash and she only dated curley to get out of the house. And she is also known for being a tart.

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Steinbeck displays through the dialogue and characterizations that these characters experience isolation because of both social barriers and personal choice. Crooks being an African-American on the ranch, full of whites, struggles racially which causes his withdrawal from the society. Crooks explains to Lennie his when he’s accompanied by him “ A guy goes nuts if he ain 't got nobody. Don 't make no difference who the guy is long’s

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Loneliness is a significant concept that Steinbeck implements within the novel Of Mice and Men. The author achieves this by isolating most of the characters within the novel and including that the concept of companionship is foreign to them. In fact, through the development of his characters as the story progresses, a reader can deduce that this theme latches on to even secondary characters like Crooks, Candy, and Curley’s wife. With Crooks being the black stable hand, Candy, the old one-handed ranch worker, and Curley’s wife acquiring names of “jailbait”, “tramp”, or any other derogatory name that the male workers come up with, they all have their own obstacles to navigate before they can fight their loneliness. George and Lennie come to this ranch in Soledad in search for a new job that’ll get them closer to their

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Steinbeck’s characterization and setting expresses his belief that it is both social barriers and personal choice that causes the loneliness and isolation of the characters. Civil rights caused separation and isolation towards black people when Of Mice and Men took place. As Crooks mention himself “Cause I’m black. They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I 'm black.

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