Loneliness is a state of sadness caused by a lack of friends or company, it is the quality of being remote and isolated from people whether it was by choice or not. In John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie are hired at a ranch for a new job. They meet Curley, the boss’ son, who does not like Lennie and always wants to start problems with him. They also meet other interesting people such as Candy, Crooks, and Curley 's wife. They open up and offer their thoughts and feelings to George and Lennie that they have never spoke about before to anyone, which accidently causes Curley’s wife to be killed by Lennie resulting in Lennie being shot by George. Throughout the story, Steinbeck’s use of character development and dialogue of Candy, Crooks, and Curley’s wife reveals that loneliness and isolation are caused by both social barriers and sometimes personal choice. During the start of the novella, Candy, an old swamper, is revealed to be lonely and distant from the other men due to his disability. Compared to everyone else, he is the oldest one, and to further isolate himself, he only has one hand. This prevents him from working as much as the others, which, in turn, causes him to distance himself from the other workers. In the beginning, when George in hesitant in staying in the bunks, Candy was persistent in keeping him there by saying, “Tell you what…last guy that had the bed was a blacksmith…clean a guy as you want to meet. Used to wash his hands even