The Role Of Isolation In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

In the novella Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck takes readers back to the great depression. During this time, around the 1930s, people had to go from farm to farm to make enough money to survive. Many people traveled from job to job alone, never making friends or having the chance to talk to anyone. Steinbeck’s characters show how this affected them and how they wanted to make friends, and get out of the isolation people had put them in. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck claims that isolation can lead to not knowing how to communicate and act around other people, this is shown through the characters of Curley’s wife, Lennie, and Crooks.

First, through Curley’s wife we can see how her being isolated from having any friends, or a life outside being Curley’s wife, has made her someone who doesn’t really know how to talk and interact with people properly. This supports the thesis that being in isolation lead her to not knowing how to interact with people. When Curley’s wife was trying to get Lennie to talk to her she said, “Why can’t I talk …show more content…
George keeps Lennie from going out and keeps him from talking to people, so this has left him isolated at the farm with few people to try to talk to. When Lennie and George first got to the farm the boss wanted to talk to them about where they’d come from and find out what they could do. The boss said “‘Listen, Small!’ Lennie raised his head. ‘What can you do?’ In a panic, Lennie looked at george for help.” This shows Lennie's isolation from people and his lack of communication skills because he had to have George answer for him. Even though George told him not to talk he should’ve been able to talk to the boss when asked a question, but he just doesn’t know what to do when put into those situations. This shows how his isolation from people took away his communication skills and left him not knowing how to act around