Alienation Of Characters In Of Mice And Men By John Steinbeck

“Pain, hurt, sadness and loneliness, bottled all that right up, and tossed it away to the bottomless pit.” Hip hop artist Kid Cudi gives us a short but sweet description of negative emotions and how they can be a daily struggle for anyone. The pain, hurt and sadness feelings can be directly linked to the loneliness, and how being lonely is the reason for so much pain. As the story goes, the indistinct description of the alienation of characters in the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is consistent throughout. Appropriately, Soledad is the location of the ranch, as this is a place steeped in loneliness. They say that some things get better with age. However, to his dismay, old Candy’s life just seems to progressively worsen. Candy has …show more content…
A great example is shown when Crooks invites Lennie into his sleeping area to talk to him, even though it is not allowed for Lennie to do so, by saying “‘Come on in and set a while’ Crooks said. ‘Long as you won’t get out and leave me alone you might as well set down.’ His tone was a little more friendly. (Steinbeck 69).” Due to the racial discrimination of Crooks being the only black male on the ranch, he also suffers from extreme loneliness since he is basically exiled from the rest of the men. This means that Lennie coming to his part of the ranch is quite unusual, and takes Crooks by surprise. Crooks shows loneliness qualities when he states the latter quote because his tone lightens into a more happy one when taking to Lennie, as if he made a new friend. While the men are playing cards, Crooks states that he isn’t allowed to join “Cause I’m black. They play cards in there, but I can’t play cause I’m black. (Steinbeck 68).” Once again, Crooks is left alone due to his race. He doesn’t have any friends on his ranch which leaves him to feel the loneliness that he does. The relevancy of loneliness in Of Mice and Men is prominent throughout the story. From the simple things, like Candy not having anyone around, to the more advanced such as Crooks being hated on and left alone for his race, loneliness is not a joke and shouldn’t be treated as such. Many characters are lonely, but these three are some of the best and most clear examples of how painful and in how many different ways loneliness effects people. Even today, the least expected of people suffer from being lonely. Loneliness is painful and can affect everyone regardless of who they are