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Loneliness In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

1027 Words5 Pages

The loudest places are the loneliest of them all. Similar to the town of solitude, despite the characters being surrounded by people, there is no trust and connection between them. As Candy, Crooks and Curley’s wife desperately battles their enforced loneliness from discrimination and prejudice, it reiterates Steinbeck’s message of how loneliness is inevitable as society is full of prejudice and inequality. It also highlights the utmost significance of companionship and how it helps people go through harsh times, knowing that there is always someone there to support them and watch out for them. Solitude can be enforced upon a person, likewise discrimination becomes the reason of social isolation at the ranch. Steinbeck presents imposed isolation …show more content…

In this case, George and Lennie have each other but people like Candy, Crooks and Curley’s wife does not have the luxury to have friends and companions, as they face prejudice and discrimination. In the ranch, unlike George and Lennie Slim says“ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”(35); everyone lacks the trust and faith in finding friendship in Steinbeck’s bleak world. Instead, Lennie and George are able to battle through the harsh conditions in the Great Depression, in the process learning to live with one another and look out for each other. In the light of this, Candy’s companion is man’s best friend, he “ had him so long. Had him since he was a pup”(56) They share a deep bond which is parallel relationship with George and Lennie, they all depend on each other through ups and downs; sadly both friendships came to a bitter end. Additionally, Lennie may not be the brightest one but his loyalty and devotion to George makes them an inseparable pair of friends. In fact, Lennie is willing to give George anything because he believes that the best should be left for his friend, he says “If (ketchup) was here, you could have some… but I wouldn’t eat none… I’d leave it all for you.”(93-95) They may have hit a few “rough patches” but their friendship is unbreakable as they have each other’s support. All in all, the companionship helps to keep a man sane, providing the security and support everyone needs to battle through the different challenges in

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973 Words | 4 Pages

The Need To Belong: The Lonely Trails As two men, George and Lennie, travel to find work during the times of dusty vegetable fields of Soledad California, they hope to someday own the ranch of their dreams. Upon their adventures in Soledad, they cling onto their only asset in this time: each other. John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men conveys the emotions of loneliness and isolation through the novel of the men's journey. People surrounding Lennie and George such as Curley's wife, Crooks, and Candy are able to exhibit the need to belong to something more, something more then the loneliness they live through.

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830 Words | 4 Pages

When George and Lennie leave the room Candy is once again alone and the text reveals that “The old man got to his feet and looked after them, His voice was shaking”(Steinbeck 59). Candy’s emptiness is revealed because of how he relies on George and Lennie and when they leave he is filled with nothing but sadness. George and Lennie’s companionship fills this space that was left empty when his dog was killed by Carlson. Thus, all Candy needs to fulfill his emptiness is a companion like George and Lennie as he tells

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530 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck tell us a story of friendship during the depression. This is a story of two friends, Lennie and George, and how they work together to keep each other company, get through hard times in life, and _____. Lennie and George do everything together and always watch out for eachother. Lennie and George are both very dependent on each other even though they do it differently. George was always there for Lennie weather he was in horrible trouble or not, George was always by Lennie’s side to protect and guide him.

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685 Words | 3 Pages

“‘A guy needs somebody-to be near him’”(Steinbeck 72) says Crooks in John Steinbeck’s novella “Of Mice and Men”. Many of the characters in the story are forced to face loneliness. Some have to because of their ethnic background, others because of a mental illness. One character is even lonely because of their gender. The main theme of the book “Of Mice and Men” is loneliness because there are many characters that face loneliness because of different reasons.

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491 Words | 2 Pages

The two main characters, George and Lennie, ward off loneliness for most of the book by staying together. George says that "ranch workers are the loneliest people in the world and don't belong nowhere"(steinbeck ). The importance of companionship is emphasized all through the novel. Many other characters in the book, such as Candy, Crooks, and Curley’s wife, display signs of loneliness. Candy, an aging ranch worker, is missing his hand from an accident and is concerned about his future on the ranch.

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540 Words | 3 Pages

Despite loneliness being a dreadful circumstance, there are several ways to overcome it. In the book “Of mice and men” by John Steinbeck, he portrays several different ways that loneliness affects each character, and shows that everybody needs a mate. Candy is compelled to find a new mate after he lost his only friend, his pup. Crook’s was grateful when he was finally able to interact with another man. Crook’s expresses his feelings of being isolated from the other men in a distressing style.

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630 Words | 3 Pages

When talking about men who are alone on ranches, George tells all the others, “I seen the guys that go around on ranches alone. They ain’t no good. They don’t have no fun” (41). George knows it’s crucial to have a friend on the ranch to deal with the boring and lonely lifestyle. Without a friend, the rancher life would be

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477 Words | 2 Pages

Don’t believe everything that you think. Classics like Of Mice and Men should stay in the curriculum of the ninth graders because it shows the realities of people in a different time period. Classics should stay in the curriculum because of the values the are shown to students in our school that’s not in the time periods and how they live and how our readers can relate to the characters in the novel. For example in Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck uses loneliness a lot in this novel.

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1915 Words | 8 Pages

George and Lennie are best friends, but George is more like Lennie’s father because of the mental disabilities Lennie has. George takes care of Lennie. Since Lennie has mental disabilities, he messes up every job they get. Through everything, they stick together. Later, they start working at a ranch, which is where they meet people named Candy, Slim, Curley, Curley’s wife, Crooks, and Carlson, who

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182 Words | 1 Pages

Loneliness can take place in any environment, it can happen to anyone, and it always has a real, severe reason behind it. During the process of reading the book “Of MIce And Men” we met different characters, with different personalities, lived very different lives, and each one of them had a backstory or an experience that led to their feeling of loneliness. For example, with ‘Crooks’, his loneliness came from an experience of racism, because he was “black”, he didn’t have a place in between the other men, and he was even assigned a bunk alone because of that reason. With Lennie, his feeling of loneliness came from the lack of love, and attention his whole life, from his childhood up until he was a grown man. With Curley’s wife, she had no

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715 Words | 3 Pages

In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the era of the Great Depression in the 1930’s is revealed through a simple story of ranch workers who hope to improve their lives. Migrant workers, George and Lennie, have a friendship that is based on trust and protection. The other workers lack the companionship and bond that these two men have. In the novel, the absence and presence of friendship is the motivation for the characters’ actions.

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1730 Words | 7 Pages

Lennie depends on his friend to survive because he has the mind of a child. Needless to say, Candy, Crooks, and Lennie all feel the pain of loneliness through different ways even if their dreams aren't so different.. In chapter three, an older migrant worker called Candy explains to George how he lost his hand on the ranch and was compensated with a “swampin’” job and 250

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701 Words | 3 Pages

In John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, he brings to light an interesting perspective on how companionship affects everyone in their daily lives. The story follows two migrant workers, George Milton and Lennie Small, as they begin a new job in a new town, and seem to be optimistic about their future. We see examples of companionship in George and Lennie’s “American Dream”, Crook’s conversation with Lennie, and in Curley’s wife. Over the course of the story, we see in those examples how companionship can bring everyone up, or how the lack thereof drags people down.

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1271 Words | 6 Pages

Steinbeck displays Crook’s isolation by describing how he lives alone in a “little shed,” excluded from the companionship in the bunkhouse. Crook’s possessions include many books that he reads instead of having company. “Crooks was a proud, distant man” because he has no choice but to endure this prejudice and isolation. Consequently, he bitterly guards his privacy, saying to Lennie, “this here’s my room... I ain’t wanted in the bunkhouse, and you ain’t wanted in my room.”

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157 Words | 1 Pages

Friendship is rare in the 'survival of the fittest' world of the ranch, where almost everyone looks out for only themselves, and are suspicious of one another, because their lives are so insecure. This could be viewed as a result f the great depression in America, which left people all over the country poor and desperate for work. As a result of this poverty, Steinbeck presents the characters as suspicious and distrustful, and against the backdrop of loneliness and isolation, George and Lennie's friendship seems even more remarkable, and even more doomed. Even their boss was suspicious of Georges motives as friendship is rare and he assumes that George must have an ulterior motive.

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