The Theme of Loneliness in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, is set in the farmlands of Salinas Valley in California during the 1930’s. At this time there was a world wide depression caused by the Wall Street crash in America. John Steinbeck was born and brought up in Salinas California, he had lived and experienced a life of a migrant worker and that is what inspired him to write this novel (novella?). This meant he could paint a lot better picture of the place and the people for the reader to imagine.
'Of Mice and men' is about two migrant workers, Lennie and George, who work and travel together. These migrant workers had a lonesome and isolated life and the
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Unemployment was high at this time and men had to move around a lot looking for work, which meant they were never in one place long enough to form relationships, so this was a very lonely existence.
Steinbeck shaped the ranch where George and Lennie worked in as an isolated and primitive place. Steinbeck uses his personal experiences as a ranch worker to describe how the working men at the ranch felt in the novel. George says that ‘ranch workers are the loneliest guys in the world, and don’t belong know where’. He it is clear to see that a migrant workers life is very lonely.
Steinbeck also portrays loneliness through characterisation. He uses sexism, racism and ageism to get his message across.
One example of this is when George meets the old, decaying Candy and his antiquated dog, he tells him about the ‘Black’ man called Crooks. Candy states to George ‘Give the stable buck hell. Ya see the stable buck’s a nigger’. This was typical of 1930’s America as black people were thought of as inferior to white people. This suggests that Crooks was friendless. He has his ‘own bunk in a separate nigger room’ and ‘he scattered personal possessions around the floor; for being alone he could leave things about’. Crooks is obviously suffering from racial discrimination as he is the only black man on the ranch, and is not allowed in the bunkroom with the
Mother Theresa once said, "Loneliness is a man's worst poverty." Without friends and companions, people begin to suffer from loneliness and solitude (Dusenbury 38). Loneliness is an inevitable fact of life and cannot be avoided, as shown prevalent through each of the characters in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Each and every character in this novel exhibits loneliness. Lennie was isolated for being mentally handicapped, Candy was isolated for being old and disabled, Crooks was for being black, Curley's wife for being a woman, and George for having to care for Lennie and being unable to socialize with others because of Lennie's consistency of getting into trouble from town
“Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world” (Steinbeck 13). This is said by George Milton in the novella Of Mice and Men. Of Mice and Men takes place in California during the Great Depression. Loneliness reoccurs several times because people do not stay at a work place long enough to make friends and usually travel alone. Loneliness is the main theme of Of Mice and Men because many characters deal with being lonely in different ways. It affects people who are looked down on because of their gender, race, and ability.
There is only one thing in life that is really needed and that is friends. Without friends, people would suffer from loneliness and solitude. Loneliness leads to low self-estee. In the novel, Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, the characters, Crooks, Candy, and Curly’s wife all show some form of loneliness. They are curious of George and Lennie’s friendship because they do not have that support in their life. Through his novel, Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck demonstrates that many times, a victim of loneliness will have a never-ending search to fulfill a friendship.
How true is the statement "Guys like us are the loneliest guys in the world"
had an old dog at the beginning on the novel .He had this dog for a
Throughout the novel, Of Mice and Men (by John Steinbeck), loneliness is the major underlying theme of the novel. You could almost say that the book has hormonal' up's and down's. Most of the characters are very lonely because they have no family. However, George and Lennie are the contradiction to this. George and Lennie's bond towards each other are so- strong that you can almost see it as you are reading the book. Candy the old crippled man wants to be part of George and Lennie's dream to own a farm and "live off the fatta the land". Curley and his dog are like the metaphor in the book for George and Lennie. Candy has to take care of his dog and George of Lennie. The other two
Although Crook, Curley's Wife, and George are lonely, ultimately you need to have someone in life.
Loneliness can be a very harsh emotion. Some let it take over their whole lookout on life . The way each individual deals with it is different but sometimes it bothers people to the point where they let it affect their dreams and decisions. In the book Of Mice and Men, characters make big decisions that affects their dreams that leave them unhappy.
He says to Lennie that he reads books all the time, but he also says “Books
In John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men, he shows us what it is like for
The book Of Mice And Men is set a few miles south of Soledad, which
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.
Although Of Mice and Men appears to be a novel that centers on the ideas of friendship and camaraderie, it can also be skewed the other way. These men who work on ranches live short, lonely lives. To them, friendship is much more of a luxury, per se, than a necessity. They work for a month, get paid, and move on. Their lifestyle isn't designed to make long-term friendships. They know nothing else. Almost every character has something to say about being lonely, making it a key point in this novel.
In this essay I aim to describe how life was like on a ranch during
In the whole book Of Mice and Men the main theme was either loneliness or isolation. Throughout the book each characters were feeling either lonely or isolated for an example Crooks, Candy and Curley's wife just to name a few.