John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men illustrates the struggles and barriers in humanity. By using characters with their own difficulties including age, race, gender, and intelligence, Steinbeck displays what it’s like to be human and degraded by others. In the end, the different scenarios of being discriminated and isolated symbolize Steinbeck’s perspective of human existence and life’s obstacles. When Candy’s dog died, he had to sacrifice his companion. Candy decided to let Carlson shoot his dog and is shown to be hurt by it when Steinbeck describes Candy to lay on the bunk staring at the ceiling ( ). Candy’s overall decision to sacrifice his dog was for the other workers. As they complained about the dog, Candy thought it was best to shoot …show more content…
When we’re first introduced to Crooks, we get shown in the setting that he’s very lonely and isolated. Steinbeck shows that Crooks is living in his own bunk with lots of books (). We’re not only shown the loneliness, but Crooks, the stable buck, outwardly expresses his feelings about being in this position. Crooks says that not really having anyone will make you sick( ). Crooks also describes a situation involving violence with some of the other workers. He’s all alone because of being a different race. Curley’s wife gets demonstrated to be lonely when she sits down with Lennie and talks about her past. She describes how she was supposed to be on T.V but things didn’t work out as they were planned and she ended up marrying Curley ( ). Being a woman states that she never really liked Curley. She needed Curley to be stable. Curley’s wife was discriminated against her gender and being a woman. People being perceived as different are discriminated whether it’s gender, race, or age. When you aren’t seen as an equal, you are immediately prejudged. Being in this type of environment at this time, you tend to become lonely and all by yourself. If you aren’t alone, you are seen as under everyone else because of your