What is it like to be truly alone? Perhaps, it’s getting stuck in an unhappy marriage. During the Great Depression, many people were treated unequal, which lead to many people being alone. Many people of color could not live with white people, people with disabilities weren’t respected and women were seen as objects, they weren’t treated equally during that time period. In the book, “Of Mice and Men” John Steinbeck teaches on an important topic to readers about how greatly the time period affects the way people viewed others. This affected many people because they were left alone and isolated.
In the book, Curley's Wife feels truly alone because she is the only woman on the entire ranch, which is full of men. Curley’s wife is also unhappy
Loneliness is not only being unhappy from lack of companionship, but it has many components. For example, somebody can have many friends and still feel lonely, when another can be all alone and feel satisfied with his/her life. John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men portrays loneliness throughout the novel and how it impacts the characters. Attention seeking, isolation and violence are some of the many negative behavior effects shown from seclusion.
Curley's wife's loneliness has altered her attitude towards others tremendously, making her obviously anxious and excessively flirtatious. The men on the ranch avoid her because of her flirtatious personality to keep themselves out of trouble. No one understands her situation and how loneliness affects her. Her insecurity is evident by the way she dresses and utilizes her make-up. She uses her appearance to receive attention like when was standing there looking into the barn. She had full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages. She wore a cotton housedress and red mules, on the steps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers. Curley's Wife feels she must dress this way for people to acknowledge her and give her attention. Her dressing-up is entirely unnecessary because they live on a farm and this is not the typical clothing. The way she dresses/makes herself up proves her insecurity and her inability to feel good about whom she really is. Curley's Wife dresses inappropriately
Curley’s wife, on the other hand, is not insecure, but suffers from ostracism and isolation because she is a married woman. Michael Meyer points out, “…the hardship for a woman to live on the ranch as presented in the novel should not be ignored”. Curley’s wife only wants someone to talk with her, but the men on the ranch mistake her trying to start conversations as sexual advances: “I never seen nobody like her. She got the eye goin’ all the time on everybody… I don’t know what the hell she wants” (Steinbeck 51). They also ridicule her, calling her a
Of Mice and Men Summative Essay What does being secluded do to a person? It does a lot. In John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men most characters are lonely and how they act reflects that. Both Crooks and Curley’s Wife’s behavior portrays in who they are and how they are treated.
Curley is very possessive of her, as if she is something that belongs to him but that everyone else desires. Curley wants the men on the ranch to know that he has something valuable that they aren’t allowed to have. Because Curley’s wife is so lonely, she is always seeking attention and putting a lot of effort into her appearance. Steinbeck writes, “She had full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages.” (31) Her over the top looks portrays her desperation to be noticed. Curley also restricts her from from socializing with the other ranch men, which makes her have no friends. She is unable to make any connections with the men on the ranch because everyone knows that if they talk to her, it will end up causing trouble with Curley, something every rancher is desperate to avoid. Since nobody seems to want to talk to Curley’s wife the loneliness makes her doubtful about herself. “What’s the matter with me? Ain’t I got a right to talk to nobody?” (Steinbeck 85). Steinbeck wants us to acknowledge loneliness and realize that sometimes people can be together and yet still be
Many individuals like to be alone, but loneliness only serves them well in small doses. Being alone can benefit some to help keep their emotions in check or clear their minds, but too much of it becomes unbearable. Eventually, constant loneliness, resulting from a lack of friendship, will lead to cruelty. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck examines the effects of loneliness through a life without friendship. In the story, George and Lennie travel from town to town as migrant workers, trying to accumulate enough money to buy their own ranch. The personality of Crooks, Curley’s wife, and George and Lennie’s relationship show that a life without friendship leads to loneliness and cruelty.
The motif loneliness is explored throughout John Steinbeck's novella, Of Mice and Men, not only with the main characters, but the secondary characters as well. Crooks, the stable hand, is a colored, which makes all the others on the ranch want to have nothing to do with him. Similarly, Candy is outed since he is an old cripple. Curley’s wife is given similar treatment since, she is a women. Of Mice and Men has many examples of discrimination.
The book "Of Mice and Men", is an example of friendship and loneliness. The main characters, George and Lennie, are two men that go on an adventure together out looking for new jobs. They have really good friendship on everything they encounter throughout their trip. Loneliness, because the reason why they stick together is because they're lonely. And without each other they don't know what they would do.
“‘Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world’”(Steinbeck 13). In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, we look at how the strong prey on the weak. Set during the Great Depression, Steinbeck reveals loneliness within many of his characters through the isolation felt by Candy, Lennie, and Curley’s wife. During this time, migrant workers were people who just needed a job and leaped at every opportunity, so they will pack up their things and move from job to job. Like Lennie, George is also a migrant worker.
One of the characters that shows loneliness is Curley’s wife. She is lonely because she is the only woman on the ranch. She said, “Why can’t I talk to you? I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely” (86).
Cigarettes are bad, right? Well, so is loneliness. They both correlate in many ways, as both of these dangers lead to thousands of deaths each year. The book “Of Mice and Men” is the story of two men Lennie and George looking for work during the Great Depression. At the same time, they are on the run because of a previous encounter that went bad between Lennie and a girl.
The Great Depression was a devastating time for the world. Those who prospered were lucky. Then there were the people who barely made it by doing hard labor for low pay. The low income workers like Candy were lucky to have anything other than the loneliness that eats at them. In “Of Mice and Men”, Old Man Candy was had the worst experience with loneliness.
Loneliness affects everyone at some time in life, unfortunately some more than others. In the novella, Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, loneliness affects everyone in the story. Three of the characters who suffer from loneliness for assorted reasons are Lennie, Curley’s Wife, and Crooks. Lennie’s loneliness is due to his mental disability, Curley’s wife due to a bad marriage, Crooks from racism. Lennie is lonely because of his mental disability.
22 in every 100,000 people committed suicide during the Great Depression (washingtonblog). Suicide is frequently linked with depression, which is commonly linked with loneliness. Oftentimes, people don't know why others become lonely. Written by John Steinbeck, a chance is given to analyze the causes of loneliness throughout the characters. For the characters in the novel Of Mice and Men, the predominant sources of loneliness are fear and discrimination with consequences such as social deprivation.
Steinbeck tells a story of loneliness and inequality. Throughout the novella, characters are often alone and are in some way treated differently from others. The story took place in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. People during that time period just wanted to survive; that was their idea of the American Dream. They traded survival for happiness. All the characters in the novella are somewhat alone and have nobody to count on. Curley’s wife is the loneliest in the novella because she is the only woman on the ranch, she is in an unhappy marriage, and she is mistreated because she’s the only woman.