Loneliness in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (Book Analysis)

Loneliness can cause people to seek attention from other people in harmful ways. Due to being in an unfamiliar environment, Curley’s Wife is experiencing loneliness. In addition to being in an unfamiliar environment, her loneliness is threatened due to the fact she is the only woman on a ranch full of men. To break her loneliness, she seeks attention from the men on the ranch. One time while talking to the men," She put her hands behind her back and leaned against the door frame so that her body was thrown forward”(Steinbeck 32). She thinks she is getting the attention of the men and getting them to notice her. Instead, the men think she is being trashy. That is harmful because she is married to Curley, the boss’s son, and one misinterpreted situation could end in a fight or someone getting fired. So, George says this when he learns about her,” She's a jail bait all set on the trigger.”(Steinbeck 53) Since the men think she is troublesome to have around, they avoid and push her away. To combat this, she tries to get the men’s attention even more. This creates a vicious cycle until the men avoid her entirely. 

Another person who suffers from this effect is Candy. When George and Lennie are talking about th eir dream of owning land, Candy, the old man who only met them a couple of days ago, offers to help them get that piece of land by making them an offer,”S'pose I went in with you guys. Tha's three hunderd an' fifty bucks I'd put in.”(Steinbeck, 61) While this may just seem like a kind gesture, we have to keep in mind that all of that is his whole life’s savings.  Candy’s blind trust in them highlights the lengths he will go for people to notice him. This puts him in the perfect situation to be manipulated and tricked until he had nothing. The reason he is actually willing to go so far is that he wants people to notice him as something other than just an old man. He wants to be useful to people and wants people to care about him. His desperation however clouds his judgment and could put him in a dangerous situation. However, while Candy gets attention from desperate actions, Whit tries to get attention from questionable company. When he was playing cards with George, he gets acquainted and tells him to go to a cat(prostitute) house. When George refuses Whit says,” Well, a guy got to have some fun sometime. (Steinbeck 54)” Whit's action of linking a cat house to having fun shows that he is trying to fulfill his loneliness in temporary forms of fulfillment. However, temporary fulfillment won’t fix his loneliness because he isn’t making any meaningful relationships to fill his loneliness. This, in turn, will cause him to go there furthering his loneliness. One pattern that emerges from Curley’s Wife, Candy, and What is that loneliness creates a cycle. Their actions when attempting to seek attention from others will cause them to become even more lonely in the end. The cycle of loneliness will continue until at some point, they become so lonely they can become depressed. 

Crooks, the only black man on the farm, craves human companionship. This is shown when he is having a Conversation with Lennie about what if George never came from the town he went to. Lennie defends George by saying that George would always come back to him. Then, Crooks proceeds to tell Lennie that he is lucky because he knows George will always come back to him, and then asks him this,” S'pose you couldn't go into the bunk house and play rummy 'cause you was black.”  While Crooks wants to connect with the men, the men won’t let him and push him away because he is black. Due to this, he resents the men on the ranch and, to avoid further getting hurt, he isolates himself. He even turns away the people trying to offer him friendship. This is highlighted by the moment when Lennie originally approaches Crooks in the barn and,” Smiled helplessly in an attempt to make friends”(Steinbeck 68), but Crooks is harsh towards Lennie and attempts to push him away by saying, "You got no right to come in my room. This here's my room. Nobody got any right in here but me"(Steinbeck, 69). Since Crooks puts on a mask of anger to avoid getting hurt people eventually believe that he wants to be left alone while he wants companionship creating a cycle in which he isolates himself from others. Eventually, Crooks isolates himself for so long he starts to become depressed. After he gets done telling Lennie about the men excluding him because he is black, he says that a guy needs people and without them,” "A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody,” and also says ,” "I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick." Since this was said after Crooks was talking about his isolation, we know that he is talking about himself. Even though he knows he needs people and without it, he is becoming depressed, he tries to mask his loneliness to Lennie by generalizing people. He does this in fear of getting hurt, but if Crooks always does this, he will never make connections. That will cause him to always suffer in silence until he destroys himself from loneliness. Another character that suffers from depression because of loneliness is Candy. Since Candy is old no one cares or listens to him, they dismiss him as a person. A prime example of this is shown when Candy defends Crooks after Curley’s Wife threatens him. In response Curley’s Wife says,” "Tell an' be damned," she cried. "Nobody'd listen to you, an' you know it.” and Candy amidst that nobody would. Since nobody values him as a person, and see him as just an old man he has no real connection to any men on the ranch. Carlson also shot Candy’s dog because he was old and no good to himself or anybody. A situation that Candy also faces because he is missing a hand, and because he is not useful anymore, Candy knows he is getting fired. He tells this to George and Lennie when they are talking about owning their own land. He also tells them when he does get fired he says,”I wisht somebody'd shoot me.” Since Candy believes no one listens to him on the farm, that has impacted his self worth and he thinks he is useless to everyone, and because of that nobody will care about him when he can’t work anymore. That causes him to become depressed and wishes people would just shoot him and be done with that. That is a very dangerous mindset to have, and since he thinks nobody cares about him he will always have that mindset and always be depressed until he eventually does die. Loneliness can cause cause people to become violent and aggressive.

When George and Lennie first arrive on the ranch, Curley sees them looking for the boss and attempts to intimidate them by making fists and giving them dirty glares.Then, little bit later Candy, an old man on the ranch, explains Curley’s actions towards them by saying Curley hates big guys because,”Curley’s like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys”(Steinbeck 27)  and ,”Kind of like he's mad at ’em because he ain’t a big guy.” (Steinbeck, 27) It’s not normal to hate people just because they are bigger than you. The reason Curley really picks fights with big people is because he thinks he has to force people to respect him and they won’t respect him unless he proves he is tougher than them. Curley has been alone for so long he thinks respect can be forced from other people by being tough and intimidating people. He believes that people judge him for being short and they are out to get him. Curley fights back against this by literally fighting against the people or intimidating them. This causes the men to drive him away from their group, further adding to his loneliness and aggression. While Curley's loneliness causes him to be aggressive because he is insecure. Carlson's Loneliness causes him to agressive from lack of empathy. After the men finished playing horseshoes, they are talking in the barn when Candy’s dog walks in. The dog is old and Carlson pressures Candy to kill the dog by saying,”"Got no teeth," he said. "He's all stiff with rheumatism. He ain't no good to you.”(Steinbeck 45) and when Candy says the dog means a lot to him he then decides,”Tell you what. I'll shoot him for you.”(Steinbeck 46) Candy has had that dog for very long and it is very dear to him. Despite that he continuously tells Candy to shoot and kill the dog even when Candy explains why its important to him. He even goes as far as to kill the dog himself. He has been alone so long that he lacks the ability to empathize with people and their situations and in the end hurts people and acts violent because he can’t understand what the other person is feeling. Both Curley and Carlson are lonely and violent, but they also differ in many ways. The main similarity between them is they let their insecurities and lack of empathy from being alone for so long turn them violent and in the end hurt other people that could put an end to their loneliness.