How significant is the theme of loneliness in Of Mice and Men? Essay

Loneliness is a state of detachment, separation, and isolation and a feeling of being friendless and forlorn. The book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck picks up this feeling as one of it’s main themes. Several characters from the novel either isolate themselves or are being isolated. The main characters George and Lennie on the other hand have a strong relationship and many others envy them for this but even those two find themselves confronted with loneliness in some way. The two protagonists George and Lennie have a special kind of relationship and this makes them stand out from the others. Many of the other characters are very lonely and even Slim, the most popular worker on the farm, how special and rare George and Lennie’s relationship is. By sharing a dream together they relieve themselves of their loneliness. Both are in some way dependant on each other and that is exactly what many others search for. Crooks comments on his own loneliness by saying that â€Å"a guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody†. Candy and Crooks are two characters, who are excluded because of physical features and they both admire George and Lennie’s friendship. Candy is an old man who lost a hand during his work on the farm. He feels he is excluded from the others and very much holds on too his old dog. After this dog is shot he looses an important part of his life. One could draw some kind of comparison between the relationship of Candy and his dog and George and Lennie. Both of these two have a similar kind of dependency on each other and without each other they no longer have someone or something to look out for. So after Candy has lost his dog he offers George and Lennie his money in order for them to allow him to join them in their dream. This shows how little all of his savings mean to him if he can have just someone around him. Not only Candy though shows his loneliness and has suffered from it. Crooks, the black stable-buck, shares a similar fate to the old Candy. At the time the novel takes place black people were looked down upon and excluded. Crooks clearly suffers under this and although he initially displays aggressiveness, the reader can still sympathize with him because it is rather clear that this origins from his isolation and loneliness. When Lennie enters his bunk house he at first tries to throw him out but then decides to tease Lennie by asking him what would happen when George wouldn’t return. This displays Crook’s curiosity for the type of bond that exists between George and Lennie. Even though he does not believe George’s and Lennie’s dream will ever come true and even though he at first seems rather rejective towards the other characters he decides to ask whether he can join them. Demonstrating his strong longing for companionship. One more character though experiences loneliness even though it is not for the same reasons as for Crooks and Candy. Curley’s wife is excluded for different than Candy and Crooks but experiences the same kind of injustice. As she mentions, she is not very happy with her husband Curley. Therefore she flirts with the other men one the ranch but they try to keep away from her. They are afraid of getting in trouble with Curley and therefore she very much is isolated from everyone on the ranch. In Lennie she finds someone she can tell her feelings to because he cannot care any less about it and does not understand the reasons for her being isolated. This is her downfall but in someway frees both of them from their curse. Curley’s wife dies even though she is married in loneliness. Lennie would without George have no chance in the hard life of that time. In George Lennie not only found a protector but also someone to relieve him from his doom of being lonely. The other men left on the farm are all in some way lonely. Even though they keep contact they do not have anyone to look after or to take care of. Exactly that is where George and Lennie differentiate themselves from the others. All characters in the novel, besides George and Lennie, are in some way lonely, whether it is because some physical feature, their age, their sex or simply because of the circumstances of the time. They all had lost their goals on the way and therefore the connection to the people around them. George and Lennie on the other hand have a bond that connects them on two levels first of all the dependency on each other and second of all their shared dream.