Fardoussa Mahamoud Houssein
Marilyn Tourangeau
English 11
October 12th, 2015
Loneliness is an unpleasent emotional response to abandonment, isolation and lack of companionship. In the novel ‘’Of Mice and Men’’ by John Steinbeck, loneliness is a motif found through several characters. Although present in most, the theme of loneliness is mostly present in the characters of Crooks, Curley's wife and Candy.
To begin, Steinbeck illustrated the theme of loneliness through Crooks’ segregation from the other workers. Being the only black man on the ranch, Crooks is ordered to sleep in the barn as opposed to the other workers, who live in a bunkhouse. He does not get to spend his free time with them which completly cuts him off from the social life on the farm. Crooks uses litterature and burries himself in work as a substitute for his lack of companionship. Furthurmore, because he is a negro, Crooks does not have the same rights as everyone else. Despite the fact that he enjoys everybody else's company, he knows that it is not acceptable for a black man to associate with people from a higher social class . On page 80 of the novel, we see Curley’s wife coming into Crooks’ room and threatening the latter when he asked her to leave. This shows how Steinbeck used the racism Crooks’ character experienced to portray the theme of loneliness in the novel. …show more content…
Curley's wife is the only female on the ranch and is forbidded from speaking to any of the other men. Throughout the entire novel, she spends her time trying to find company under the excuse of looking for her husband when in reality, she was avoiding him. On the page 89 of the book, Curley's wife says: “ Well I ain't told this to nobody … I don’ like Curley. He ain't a nice fella.” This shows that not only is Curley's wife