How Does Steinbeck Present Loneliness

John Steinbeck illustrates the lonely life of working on a ranch in the early 1930’s through his novel Of Mice And Men. He depicted the various characters’ feelings of loneliness and isolation in different ways. Curley’s wife tried desperately at times to interact with the other ranch hands while George and Lennie’s relationship is interesting because most ranch helpers travel alone after working for a short time. Candy and Crooks were lonely people due to their physicalities: Crooks is an African American slave while Crooks is just an older man. George and Lennie are the main characters of the novel. Lennie had some sort of mental deficiency and George said at one point that he was kicked in the head by a horse when he was little. They are a strange pair because most ranch workers travel alone after working on a particular ranch for only a brief amount of time. Neither George or Lennie seem to want to leave one another. At one point Lennie offers to leave to leave George, "If you don' want me I can g off in the hills an' find a cave. I can go away any time.” said George. "No—look! I was jus' foolin', Lennie. 'Cause I want you to stay with me" (7). Candy is an older gentleman working on the farm. He had an elderly dog who was very aged and the other workers suggested he was too old to justify keeping alive. Candy was very reluctant
She constantly flirts with the other workers because she doesn’t really talk to many other people on the ranch and wants to spite Curley. “’I get lonely’ she said ‘You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley, else he gets mad. How’d you like not to talk to nobody?’ (34). She then later in the book persuaded Lennie to listen to her while in the barn and let Lennie touch her hair because she liked the attention. She has very little hope of being happy being married to Curley and living on the