Theme Of Loneliness

Loneliness is when you are sad because you have no company or friends. Being lonely is not healthy for people. If you are isolated long enough it can lead to situations where you could cause harm to yourself. Depression and thoughts of suicide are only some of the hardships that may occur from being lonely for too long. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the characters are located on a ranch to work in a town called Soledad. Soledad itself means loneliness in Spanish. The setting of a ranch in Soledad is important to the idea of loneliness in Of Mice and Men because many of the characters on the ranch, specifically Crooks, Candy, and Curley’s Wife, are suffering from loneliness. The Characters who suffer from loneliness illustrate the overarching …show more content…
Crooks is one of the loneliest people on the ranch. People on the ranch do not pay much attention to him because of his race. Because Crooks is black, he is segregated from the rest of the workers on the ranch, “Crooks the Negro stable buck, had his bunk in the harness room; a little shed that leaned off the wall of the barn.”(Steinbeck, 66). He is not allowed to live in the bunkhouse with the rest of the workers. Crooks is also not allowed to work with the other men. Instead of going to work with the rest of the men he is forced to live with the animals. Being lonely has made Crooks bitter. We can see this when Lennie goes to visit him in his shed. He tries to act mean to get Lennie out of his room, but eventually he lets Lennie stay and actually enjoys his company. Crooks is a nice man, but because of his race he is isolated and forced to be …show more content…
He is also one of the loneliest. All his life he had his dog to keep him company, but the other workers on the ranch did not understand what his dog meant to him. Candy let the other men talk him into letting Carlson shoot his dog. Candy’s dog was his best friend on the ranch, so when they took that away he was very depressed. Later on when Candy is talking to George he tells him he regrets letting Carlson shoot his dog, “I oughtta of shot that dog myself George. I shouldn’t oughtta let no stranger shoot my dog.”(Steinbeck, 61). Candy knew his dog was getting old and needed to be put down, but he didn’t have the heart to do it because his dog was his only friend. Candy also saw himself in his dog. A while back Candy got his hand caught in a machine, so now he sees and old disabled man who will be thrown off the ranch as soon as he is no longer able to swamp the bunkhouse. The boss has him sweep, and keep things clean because that’s about everything that he can do. Candy knows that he is not much use to the farm. He also knows that the boss isn’t going to keep him around much longer. When George and Lennie were talking about the house they were dreaming of getting, Candy saw the opportunity to join their dream. He asked them if he could join in on their plan to get the house. At first George and Lennie were not sure, but as soon as Candy said he had more than three hundred dollars saved they allowed it. At this point in the book Candy