Of Mice and Men (Loneliness)

Loneliness A person is always trying to find a bond with another person, but in this lonesome world that doesn’t always occur. When people are deprived of companionship, a lot of different effects happen in different people. The different situations that everyone is in can lead to different outcomes and can lead to people developing different personalities and different situations in life. This longing for companionship is a theme that is widely explored in the book in the book Of Mice and Men. In this book, John Steinbeck uses the characters Crooks, Curley’s wife and Candy to show that loneliness is sadly a part of life that everyone has to fight against. By the use of characters Steinbeck shows how people are lonely. Crooks is a character that represents black people of the time and how they were mistreated and not cared for. “S’pose you didn’t have nobody. S’pose you couldn’t go into the bunk house and play rummy ‘cause you was black” (Page 72). In this quote he is talking to Lennie as he came into his room in the back of the barn. The bunk house is where the rest of the characters sleep showing the distance between the rest of the characters and Crooks. He explains it himself and blames it on the prejudice that society has placed on him. By him mentioning playing rummy shows his need for companionship and interaction with other characters. Lennie’s reaction to this is ignorance, not intentionally on his part, he pays attention to other things that can only affect him showing how society has also ignored the issue of Crooks and the many people that might be going through the same situation. A sense of wanting to belong to something other than yourself that comes with loneliness is also touched upon in the novel by the character Crooks. “…If you…guys would want a hand to work for nothing-just his keep, why I’d come an’ lend a hand” (Page 76). Crooks is telling Lennie and Candy he would also like to join them on their plan to buy a ranch. He says it