Companionship In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

The comfort of companionship should never be taken for granted. In of Mice and Men George and Lennie travel together in search of work hoping for a bright future together. Throughout of Mice and Men John Steinbeck uses characters to show the importance of companionship.
Throughout the book Candy protects his dog, helping show the importance of companionship to him. After Candy walks into the room George and Lennie are in George makes a rude comment about his dog being old. “God, he was a good sheep dog when he was younger.” (Steinbeck 12) Candy quickly defends his dog against a comment that would not affect his dog yet the first time he talks about his dog is to protect him even if it was not dangerous but an off hand comment. Candy still

When George and Lennie began to cook supper by the river at the beginning of the book Lennie asks George to tell him about the rabbits to which George reluctantly responds with the rehearsed story of their dream farm. “With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. … because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you,” (7) Both George and Lennie find their companionship important proven by the fact that they planned a future together and talk about how they have each other every time they talk about their future. Later when George is talking to slim about Lennie in the past, he explains why he is nice to him now and once again seems to talk as if he were better than the other ranch hands simply because he is friends with somebody. “I seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain’t no good. They don’t have no fun. After a long time they get mean.” (20) When George talks to Slim he confesses that he has grown used to Lennie being with him all the time and even says that he is happier and luckier than everyone else who works on the ranches showing how important the relationship between them is to him. Almost every conversation between or about them continues to strengthen the idea that companionship is an extremely important factor in of Mice and