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Who is the loneliest character

Decent Essays

WHO IS THE LONELIEST CHARATCTER ON THE RANCH?
Steinbeck has written of Mice and men in a time period where men travelled alone and rarely sent time with other people. This is reflected in the characters of the novel, who are all lonely however some are lonelier than others. These include Crooks, Candy, Curley and Curley’s wife. They all have the hope of achieving their own dreams, which is the cause of their loneliness.
It can be argued that Crooks is the loneliest character in the novel. This is because he is segregated due to his race. He is the only black person on the ranch so has absolutely no one to talk to. The other characters think of him as being dirty and inferior to white people and Crooks himself has become so used to …show more content…

This can be seen when she says, “Nobody can’t blame a person for looking” however the George calls her ‘poison’ and ‘jail bait’ meaning the other workers don’t like her at all and describe her using foul words. However this would be expected in this time period. Even though she is married she is still lonely because of problems in their relationship. She even wishes Curley had his other hand broken. She says she had a dream to become a Hollywood and Curley promised he would make her dream come true but that was all lies and instead is being taken advantage of and is in a position where she almost can’t escape. In section 4 we see that she is harsh to the other men who did not go into town, calling them the ‘weaker ones’ and intimidating them. This is ironic because she is also one of the ‘lonely ones’ and she is very cunning but also vain as she tries to seek out those who are weaker to get to the other men and gain more attention.
To conclude, these are the four loneliest characters in the novel. They all have similarities in terms of dreams and loneliness however in the story the characters do not notice this but the reader almost classifies these characters as an outsiders group. Their characters show how having big dreams and high aspirations can make you lonelier. We can also see how the views of society affect loneliness such as the acceptance of racism and sexism in this time period as well as the fact that every man was for himself so there

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