Loneliness In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Back in the 1930s, when this novel took place, the men of the family had no choice but to travel to any where that had job opportunities available. This meant that he women and children were left at home for extended periods of time while the husbands worked to support them. When the men would travel, they would not usually go with a buddy or a friend, but alone with no one to talk to. To all men that traveled during this time, loneliness was universal. In John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men, not only were the main characters lonely, but also some of the minor characters demonstrated traits and said things to make us believe that they too were lonely. The first character that comes to mind about loneliness is Curley’s Wife. She is a controversial character in this novel because of the fact she is so flirty with everybody on the farm except her actual husband. Some people think that she deserves this loneliness because of how she flirts so much, but the readers do not actually know if she …show more content…
Curley has a wife, is a strong well built farmer and even, the bosses son. However, he still is extremely lonely which he expresses by how he acts and how mean he is to the other men. One case of when Curley was angry, was when he believed Candy was in the Barn with his wife and he believed Slim was in the barn with his wife. One major flaw of Curley, is the fact that he is a small guy and he tries to make himself look above everyone else by wearing elaborate boots and picking fights with the larger workers on the ranch to make people respect him, but he can still be compassionate which is shown when he says “Well, I didn’t mean nothing, Slim. I just ast you.”(62) Finally, one of Curley’s worst insecurities is how jealous he gets of his wife flirting with the other men, which causes him to lash out at everyone and be on edge twenty four