Loneliness In Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Loneliness, in accordance with the dictionary is a complex and usually unpleasant emotional response to isolation or lack of companionship. However, it doesn’t always work like that, human beings can be lonely even when surrounded by other people, specifically if said other people cannot relate to or communicate effectively with the subject. In this way, many people can be lonely but not even seem lonely and that in itself is dreadful. Loneliness is dark bottomless hole that is just too easy to fall into and disappear forever. Steinbeck though, used this tactic of despair and sentenced the majority of his characters to life with it in his novel, Of Mice and Men. The lonely are not few in Of Mice and Men but the most apparent ones that Steinbeck points to are George, Lennie, and Curley’s wife. Though they are all lonely in separate ways, they are still all lonely and Steinbeck proved that without a doubt.
Unbeknownst to the one person George spends the most time with, George is lonely. With Lennie a consistency in George’s life George is never

Since she is the only women on the ranch, she is not only looked down upon, but looked at. “’I get lonely’ she said ‘You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley, else he gets mad. How’d you like not to talk to nobody?’” (Page 87) This quote is said by Curley’s wife when all the men went into town, including her husband. It shows that she spends all her time alone in her house as the men work in the fields. She is also not allowed to talk to anyone but her husband who spends all of this time in the fields, so she feels like she is living alone all her life. Being alone causes her to want attention from anyone who’ll give it to her and so the men see her as a flirt and her husband keeps her under strict watch. Steinbeck used the theme of loneliness in his novel through the portrayal of many lonely characters namely, Lennie, George, and Curley’s