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Loneliness In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

1120 Words5 Pages

In John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men, he displays loneliness through the thoughts and actions of the characters. There were several characters in the book that faced loneliness in different ways. The ranch workers travel alone from ranch to ranch and according to George, “Guys like us, that us that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world .”, because ranch workers are never able to settle down (Steinbeck 15) The characters in Steinbeck’s novella try to find company in objects or people. George and Lennie have each other to keep them company and the ranchers find it odd to see two men traveling together. Steinbeck is trying to say that people need a companion in life because people want to be valued and needed. The …show more content…

When Candy lost his hand he couldn’t work with the other men, so he became a swamper. The thing that fills Candy’s loneliness is his dog who is tragically shot by Carlson. Carlson shot Candy’s dog with no remorse and claims he did Candy a favor. Candy raised his the dog since he was a puppy, so it was a hard decision for him to let Carlson shoot his companion. Carlson does not understand the emotional attachment between Candy and his dog because Carlson views the dog as a nuisance. Candy feels useless without his hand and feels that he has no place to go and no family to turn to and confesses to George, “When they can’t use me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me. But they won’t do nothing like that. I won’t have no place to go, an I can’t get no more jobs.”(Steinbeck 59). When his dog is shot he decides to share the dream that George and Lennie have and is willing to give every penny that he has to be a part of the dream and states, “And they give me two hundred and fifty dollar ‘Cause I lost my hand. An’ I got fifty more saved up right in the bank right now. That’s three hundred…”(Steinbeck 58). Soon the dream he shares with Lennie and George is shattered because of the death of Curley’s wife. When Candy sees her corpse he starts yelling curse words and blames her for killing their dream. Curley’s wife is seen as a scapegoat for their dream of owning land to come to an end and it is foreshadowed when George warns Lennie to stay away stating, “I don’t care what she says and what she does. I seen ‘em poison before, but I never seen no piece of jailbait worse than her. You leave her be.”(Steinbeck 32). Candy’s loneliness will always be with him due to the fact that he is old and useless. The only things that fills his void of loneliness were his dog and the dream he shares with George and

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