Of Mice And Men Lonliness Essay, Research Paper

First published in 1937, Of Mice and Men is an American based novel by John Steinbeck. George and Lennie are two ranch custodies that travel together, with George watching over the mentally inferior Lennie. When they start work at a new spread, several different characters are introduced. One affliction that seems to confront several characters is loneliness, created by factors such as the character s life styles and by societal criterions of the clip period. Steinbeck s subject that solitariness is unhealthy and unsafe to a individual s good being is unfolded throughout the novel. This implicit in subject is foremost introduced in the novel when George negotiations to Lennie about the advantage they have over other workers of the clip. George described how other ranch custodies like themselves who traveled entirely had nil to look frontward to, and no 1 to look after them. He told Lennie how other workers would merely work up a interest and blow it at a saloon because they had no where else to travel, no 1 else to look after them. George explained how Lennie and himself were different from those alone workers when he said, With us it ain Ts like that, We got a hereafter. We got person to speak to that gives a darn about us. Because of Lennie and George s relationship they are able to concentrate on their dream of holding their ain farm someday, alternatively of traveling from spread to ranch and prodigally passing their wage at the terminal of the month. Although Lennie is a load to George, George accepts their relationship to contend his ain solitariness. As he explains to Slim, I seen the cats that go about on the spreads entirely. That ain t no good. They don Ts have no merriment. After a long clip they get average. They get wantin to contend all the clip. George appreciates Lennie s company because he knows that being entirely can take to negativeness on life. Candy is another character who deals with solitariness. He is the oldest adult male on the spread and is crippled. The lone work he can make is cleaning out the bunkhouse and other uneven occupations. His lone comrade is his old Canis familiaris who stays by his side. One dark nevertheless, a fellow spread manus named Carlson convinces Candy to allow himself set the Canis familiaris out of its wretchedness. If you want me to, I ll put the old Satan out of his wretchedness right now and acquire it over with, said Carlson in persuasion to Candy. Candy agreed and so his lone comrade was shot, go forthing him sad and lonely. A few proceedingss subsequently though, Candy hears Lennie and George speaking about the land that they wish to buy. Candy, overcome with solitariness and seeing no hope for the hereafter, buys himself into a friendly relationship by offering George money to pay for the land. S pose I went in with you guys, Candy stated, Tha s three hundred an 50 vaulting horses I d put in. Steinbeck is connoting that Candy is trying to avoid the inevitable solitariness from the decease of his Canis familiaris, by purchasing in on a farm with his new found friends. Crooks, a Negro stable vaulting horse, besides had to manage solitariness. Being black, he was forbidden to remain with the other cats in the bunkhouse, and was alternatively forced to populate all entirely in the barn, with lone books for company. When Lennie wandered into his room, Crooks talked to Lennie about his solitariness. He described how disconcerting it was to non be able to portion your ideas with another individual. A guy sets entirely out here at dark, possibly readin books or thinkin or material like that. Crooks explained, Sometimes he gets thinkin, an he got nothin to state him what s so an what ain T so. Possibly he sees somethin, he don T know whether it s right or non. He can t turn to some other cat an ask him if he sees it excessively. He can t Tell. Crooks besides tried to acquire Lennie to sympathise with his solitariness. S pose you didn Ts have cipher. S pose you couldn t go into the bunk house and play drunkard cause you was black. How 500 you like that? Sure you could play quoitss till it got dark, but so you got to read books. Books ain t no good. A cat needs person to be near him. A cat goes nuts if he ain t got cipher. Don t do no difference who the cat is, long s he with you. The solitariness that Crooks had to confront turned him into a really sad adult male. Crooks last point about it non counting who the cat is, was illustrated absolutely in his conversation with Lennie. Lennie barely listened to a word Crooks said, but because of his solitariness Crooks talked

anyhow. Merely speaking to another human briefly here comforted his hurting with being entirely. Another character who experiences solitariness in the narrative is Curley s married woman. Steinbeck chose non to even give her a name, merely to stress how stray and alone she was. She was unhappily married to Curley, with whom she ne’er even exhausted clip. Because of this, she wandered through the spread speaking to the workers to avoid her solitariness. At one point she addresses Crooks, Lennie, and Candy. Think I don Ts like to speak to person of all time one time in a piece? Think I like to sit in that house alla clip? Her wont of speaking to the spread hands to avoid solitariness, finally ended in her decease. She approached Lennie for conversation, and it ended in Lennie killing her in his panicky province. If she hadn Ts have had all the solitariness, she likely wouldn Ts have talked to Lennie at all.

In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck showed the toll that loneliness takes on people and how they try to avoid solitariness. He used George and Lennie s relationship as a contrast to everyone else in the novel who went through life entirely. He besides showed the downside of out projecting people like Crooks and Candy, for race and age, because the solitariness they would be left with was cruel. With Curley s married woman, Steinbeck showed merely how hurtful solitariness can be by havin her ain solitariness consequence in her decease. After understanding the effects of solitariness by reading the novel, Steinbeck leaves the reader inquiring whether Curley s married woman was better off dead anyhow.

Throughout the novel, company is the most dominant subject. First, company occurs when the two chief characters Lennie and George walking together and speaking about what they were traveling to state the foreman for being late. Lennie stops to imbibe from the river and George warns him non to imbibe excessively much or he will acquire ill. This portion of the novel shows that George and Lennie are comrades and that they are looking out for each other. As their conversation continues, it becomes clear that George is looking out for Lennie. This quotation mark besides shows that George is the 1 who is taking attention of Lennie about like a male parent figure for Lennie. In the novel a comrade is greatly needed by every character because the farm is a alone topographic point. Then people like Curly find other avocations such as crushing up other characters that are bigger than him. This causes another scene in the center of the novel. As a individual one time said A friend in demand is a friend in title. This shows that people are ever in demand of company. If Lennie was by himself or George was by himself the fresh wouldn T be the same. This novel is all about company and if one of the chief comrades is taken out of the novel the novel won t be the same. In the novel George and Lennie become fulfilling to each other s presence or company. The ground why company is in this work is because George made a promise to Lennie s Aunt Clara to ever watch over his friend or comrade Lennie. For the most portion, George follows this promise through until the terminal of the novel where George uses a clemency killing on Lennie Les do it now, Lennie says Le s get that topographic point now. George uses a clemency putting to death on Lennie because, Lennie has killed Curly s married woman and it is merely just that he will decease for the errors that he has made. So George being Lennie & # 8217 ; s comrade decides to kill Lennie before anyone else had a opportunity to make so. George agrees, and he takes out Carlson s gun and shoots Lennie in the dorsum of the caput. Lennie falls to the land noiselessly, as George tosses the gun off and sits down on the riverside. This quotation mark shows that George wanted Lennie to decease merrily by saying the dream before George shoots Lennie. That is a mark of a comrade killing another comrade which makes the stoping really sad because two good friends have to divide apart and one friend has to decease. This shows that George and Lennie needed each other and it shows how much George and Lennie truly do care for each other.

In decision, a comrade to some people in this novel is better than holding a life. By the terminal of the novel the characters would make anything for a comrade like Curly s married woman did by speaking to Lennie and so Lennie killed her. As a consequence Curly s married woman died looking for a comrade. Therefore, every individual needs company.