Loneliness In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

“Loneliness, triggered by a desire to connect with others, reaches deep into our soul and pushes us toward others” (Ed Donner). Loneliness has always been a problem in this society. It is an unpleasant feeling to have. Most people will experience it and will acquire problems due to it. But most will not know how to cope with it. This theme occurs in the novel, Of Mice and Men. In the novel, two characters express this subject, Crooks and Curley’s wife; due to their isolation, they experience loneliness and in their own way will try to deal with it. To kick off, in the novel, Of Mice and Men, one of the overall themes is loneliness, one of the characters that portray this theme is Crooks. In the setting, Of Mice and Men, majority of the men …show more content…
He was alone throughout most of the novel, then Lennie saw a light in his room and entered, they started to talk to one another. There the reader knows the lonely state Crooks is in and due to the fact that he lives alone , Crooks “got nobody” with him and he starts to “[go] nuts”’(Steinbeck 80). Crooks starts to witness things that are not really present, and due to him being alone, he has no one to base his sightings on. He is the only one who sees this because of his isolation. His hallucinations are an outcome of his segregation. Secondly, was when Lennie slipped into Crooks’s room. Crooks was first annoyed but then let him stay as “ long as [he] will not get out and leave [him] alone”. There we know that Crooks had to “sit … and read books”’all day ( Steinbeck 68) . This illustrates how Crooks deals with his loneliness. Crooks’s boredom proves that he …show more content…
Towards the end of the story Curley’s wife encounters Lennie. There the reader now knows that Curley’s wife is ‘“lonely”’ and that she “‘can [not] talk to nobody but Curley’’’, who is always “‘mad”’ and never in the mood to listen ( Steinbeck 87). Curley’s wife does not talk to anyone due to her own isolation. She can only talk to Curley but he “gets mad all the time” ( Steinbeck 87). Therefore she want someone else to converse with. It is not so much Curley’s doing as it is of her own. Her preference causes her to separate because she feels as if Curley does not fulfill her needs. So she tends to be alone. She does not get the conversations she desires due to her isolation. After the encounter, Curley’s wife wanted discuss topics with Lennie, at first he refused but she believes that she has “got a right to talk to [somebody] so she carried on conversing about how she “‘coulda made somethin’ of [herself] . She spoke with “a passion of communication”(Steinbeck 87). She believe she has the right to talk to a person due to Curley not fulfilling her communication needs. So she uses Lennie to relieve all the emotions she has. This is how she coped with her loneliness. Her passion of communication emerges due to her need to communicate with another