How Does Steinbeck Present Loneliness In Of Mice And Men

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Everyone is lonely. No matter how many friends you have, or how many people are there to support you, you are lonely. In Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck we are introduced to a few characters who are lonely and isolate themselves. Those characters are Crooks, Curley’s wife and Candy. Crooks is a lonely guy. He has his own room, is the only stable buck and can’t talk to any of the others because of the color of his skin. In this story he demonstrates loneliness by saying “Come on in and set a while. Long as you won’t get out and leave me alone, you might as well set down.” He’s not used to having someone be friendly to him so he almost kicks Lennie out. Loneliness and isolation can lead to pushing people away and that’s something Crook does on accident. Another quote that he says is “George can tell you some screwy things, and it don’t matter it’s just the talking. It’s just bein’ with another guys. That’s all.” Meaning, at least Lennie has someone to …show more content…

She doesn’t seem to be happy in the relationship though and walks around the farm a lot to talk to the other migrant workers. Curley is really controlling and hates her talking to other men and doesn’t even like when she leaves the house. She’s lonely because none of the other men talk to her because of Curley and they think she’s bad news. On the outside she acts really tough; “Well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.” She says she could get him strung up, not do it herself and that shows weakness, she won’t do anything, she just threatens people because she’s Curley’s wife. She even says it out in the open that she’s lonely “I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely.” These are good examples of loneliness and isolation because Curley keeps her isolated by controlling who she talks to and loneliness because nobody wants to talk to her because of Curley threatening them