Loneliness In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

I shouldn’t oughtta of let no stranger shoot my dog.” Candy regret not putting his dog out of its misery himself. After Lennie kills Curley’s wife, George is met with the challenge of whether he should let the other guys capture Lennie, or make sure he dies painlessly. George, being the smart man, he is, knew that Lennie would go to the riverbank, where George told Lennie to go if he ever got in trouble. “And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head.

Just like George and Lennie, Candy was also lonely and alone in the world, “... I ain’t got no relatives nor nothing...” it was a different matter when he

Understanding just how important security is to his own future, Candy hopes he can tempt George with his life’s savings and seal the deal when he mentions he had no living relatives to either help him or benefit from his death. Scared and embarrassed, Candy never comes straight out and admits how ageism has affected him, but he does express his feelings of fear and his desire to feel like he belongs when he comments to George, “They’ll can me purty soon. Just as soon as I can’t swamp out no bunkhouses…” (60). Without any family or friends, without a job or any money, Candy latches on to the idea of owning land together: “An’ it’d be our own, an’ nobody could can us” (58). Unfortunately, since Candy is much older than the other ranch workers, he often feels left out and lonely amongst a group of young, healthy men. Despite his insecurities, Candy still wants to contribute something to society to help provide him with a sense of purpose and to help make him feel like someone still needs him.

This is foreshadowed when Candy tells George that when Carlson killed his dog, Candy should have done it himself. That put forward the thought that if Lennie was to die, then George should be the one to do it and not anybody else. So if someone was to want to kill Lennie (like Curley did after he killed his wife), then George should be the one to kill him, not anyone else. This makes sense because both Lennie and Candy’s dog have impairments. They are reflections of each other, as in where Carlson says, “That dog smells and is no good to himself nor anybody else,” this reflects Lennie because he can’t take care of himself and he is always causing trouble for George.

Earlier in the book, Candy had to face the same thing. Candy’s dog had to be put down, and Candy says, “ I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn’t ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog,” (Steinbeck, 61). George faces the same thoughts, he’s been with Lennie for too long

So, George learns from Candy’s big mistake, in order to not share Candy’s consequence. So, Candy’s sad circumstances help George make the correct decision of killing Lennie, thus George can spare himself from a life of

Like Candy, Candy’s dog is faced with the ultimate punishment for his age and disability. Candy’s dog is old and said to smell bad and isn’t worth anything, the dog is shot because of its disabilities. This event foreshadows Lennie’s fate at the hand of George. Both of these characters’ euthanasia is rationalized to put them out of their misery and to prevent future suffering from happening due to their disabilities. Which is almost a mirror image of George and Lennie’s relationship where George has known Lennie for a considerable amount of time and George knows that he is completely responsible of Lennie’s well-being and when that well-being is in jeopardy George feels a moral obligation just like Candy did when he gave permission to Carlson to shoot his dog. The euthanizing of Candy’s dog is a “foreshadowing of what will happen with Lennie and George” (Thomas Scarseth) because both Candy and George’s relationship to those dependent to them end with them killing them in order to save them from suffering.

But when Lennie killed Curley’s wife, Candy’s dream crumbled as he saw her dead body. “Now Candy spoke his biggest fear. “‘You an’ me can get that little place, can’t we, George? You an’ me can go there an’ live nice, can’t we, George? Can’t we?”’

This quote shows Candy cannot bare the thought of his dog being gone and losing the long friendship they have had for years. For George it was much harder having to kill his best friend himself. “ ‘I just done it,’ George said tiredly” (107). We see George’s exhaustion from dealing with Lennie and we also see how much strane this decision has put on him. These decisions were both very hard to make.

Their first impression of him was that he was old man with handicapped hand and an ancient dog. His loneliness and powerlessness didn’t appear until his dog was shot by another character. The dog helped cover Candy’s loneliness, in the beginning the dog was his life companion. candy’s loneliness was about that he didn’t want to die alone nor live alone “If they was a circus or baseball game… we would of went her “(96). candy desperately wanted to share George and Lennie dream, but Lennie got killed

Loneliness is often said to be the most terrible poverty. It is not a feeling which can be ignored, but rather an empty life. Crooks was cast aside from the community of the Soledad ranch because of his race. He was constantly made aware that he was not equal to others and would never be a part of the community. As this became natural to him, he found comfort in others loneliness, perhaps because misery loves company.

Of Mice And Men is a novel written by John Steinbeck that demonstrates many themesespecially loneliness. It is especially forced since the novel takes place in Soledad, meaningsolitary. The main characters are wandering men looking for temporary employment from farmto farm across the country. There are other people who experience loneliness on the farm whoare not limited to but include Crooks, Candy, and Curley's wife. Crooks is one of the fellow workers on the farm to George and Lennie.

Candy has no one else to call his friend or to lean on for support; when George and Lennie showed up, he finally had some people to talk to and to call his buddies. Candy doesn’t have anyone else but them, and he doesn’t want to be, like his dog, get rid of because he was too old or not enough for the ranch. George and Lennie are his chance at escaping from loneliness, making the dynamic between the three men very endearing and

The parallels between Lennie and George’s relationship and the relationship that their workmate, Candy had with his dog reaffirm the power dynamic between George and Lennie. In the novella, Candy must kill his dog because it is old and weak. Candy felt such extreme regret when it came time to kill his dog, that instead of doing

George decides that he must finish Lennie himself to prevent a prolonged period of suffering. George pulls the trigger and Lennie is as dead as his mice. He tells Candy, “-I think I knowed from the very first. I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would,” (Steinbeck 94).