How Does Steinbeck Present The Theme Of Isolation In Of Mice And Men

Improved Essays
¨Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world,¨ according to George Milton. Many laborers in agriculture during the Great Depression lead lives of isolation, moving from one job opportunity to the next without company. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, masterfully addresses both the isolation endured by those laborers and the sources of it. George Milton and Lennie Small are two ranch workers attempting to attain the American dream by saving up to purchase their own ranch. They seek to escape the same difficulty that plagues all of Steinbeck's characters: loneliness. The isolation that Steinbeck's characters suffer is not a result of their own choices, but a consequence of social barriers that cannot be disregarded. …show more content…
Unlike any other character in Of Mice and Men, Crooks is required under segregation to avoid socializing with the other people on the ranch. In the novel, Crooks laments, ¨A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long´s he´s with you. I tell ya… I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an´ he gets sick.¨ Being the only dark-skinned man on the ranch, Crooks has no one to socialize with. The white ranch workers do not share their living space with him, play cards or horseshoes with him, or speak with him for any prolonged amount of time. Crooks craves social fulfilment to the extent that he describes his lack of it as illness, but it unable to cure it. Institutionalized racism, rather than Crooks´ choices, confine him to a life of …show more content…
The one-handed, elderly man is spending his last working years swamping out the bunkhouse on the ranch. Candy says, on the night his dog is euthanized, ¨You seen what they done to my dog tonight? They says he wasn’t no good to himself nor nobody else. When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me. But they won’t do nothing like that. I won’t have no place to go, an’ I can’t get no more jobs." Candy knows that when he can no longer perform well as a swamper, his working years are over. He is going to lose his only income, and he has no friends or family to support him, so when his career ends, so does his life. Candy is alone, in every significant sense of the word. When he learns of George and Lennie´s plan to buy a ranch, he offers, ¨S'pose I went in with you guys… I ain't much good, but I could cook and tend the chickens and hoe the garden some. How'd that be?" Candy is desperate to find a sense of family or community. As he ages, he needs someone he can rely on to take care of him, and he is willing to give back whatever he can. Unfortunately, when George and Lennie´s plans go astray, Candy is left reeling. No one is willing to get attached to him or care for him when he gets too old to work because he is seen as just another nearly-useless elderly man who is near to death, anyway. Candy is isolated because of ageism, not a lack of effort on his part.
The characters in the novel suffer from loneliness not

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Theme Of Loneliness

    • 1158 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The boss has him sweep, and keep things clean because that’s about everything that he can do. Candy knows that he is not much use to the farm. He also knows that the boss isn’t going to keep him around much longer. When George and Lennie were talking about the house they were dreaming of getting, Candy saw the opportunity to join their dream. He asked them if he could join in on their plan to get the house.…

    • 1158 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Loneliness “Loneliness is my least favorite thing about life. The thing that I’m most worried about is just being alone without anybody to care for or someone who will care for me.” -Anne Hathaway. All my characters feel some type of loneliness. Like Crooks feels the loneliness of being alone.…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the story Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, two migrant ranchers named George and Lennie are in search of accomplishing their dream. However, they are also trying to overcome the barriers that lie ahead of them. John Steinbeck develops the theme of Loneliness by using the literary devices Characterization, Imagery, and Setting. Steinbeck develops the theme of loneliness by using the literary device of Characterization. Throughout the book, each character is suffering from a sense of isolation, which includes Curley’s wife, Crooks, and Candy.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He works as a swamper as he lost his hand while working on the farm and they gave him the job as a swamper to help compensate for his hand. Candy was fine working on the farm, but he realized he wasn't going to have his job soon and too make things worse his very old dog that he had since he was a pup was being insulted by the other workers for being stinky. Another ranch worker name Carlson convince Candy to let him shoot the dog to “put it out of its misery” when he just thought it stunk up the whole bunkhouse. After the death of the dog, candy is seen to go downhill into loneliness until he hears about George and Lennie's dream house. ”Tell you what-,…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Chapter 3 Cruelty & Isolation Q: “At last Carlson said, ‘’If you want to, I’ll put the old devil out of his misery right now and get it over with.’…. Candy said, ‘Maybe tomorra. Le’s wait till tomorra.’ …. ‘Let’s get it over with,’ Carlson said. ‘We can’t sleep with him stinkin’ around in here.’”…

    • 1127 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The characters in this book work and reside of a farm together, but not everyone on the farm gets along. In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, he develops the concept of loneliness through Candy, Crooks, and Curley’s wife in order to demonstrate that loneliness affects how people think, feel, and act.…

    • 936 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Loneliness in Of Mice and Men Even in a crowded room, the loneliest people could be found. In John Steinbeck’s n Of Mice and Men, he shows how loneliness can be found in the most crowded places, and how it inevitably leads to bad events. The workers on the rach in the book all face loneliness in their own ways for different reasons. Crooks, who faces discrimination, Curley’s wife who is misunderstood, and Candy who simply doesn’t fit in.…

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Candy says, “A guy on a ranch don’t ever listen nor he don't ast no questions”(Steinbeck 24). Candy is trying to say that workers that work on ranches aren’t much of conversationalists or talkers. As the book continues, Candy says, “The old man squirmed uncomfortably “Well-Hell! I had him so long. Had him since he was a pup.…

    • 793 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    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.…

    • 750 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    He “lost [his] hand right here on this ranch. That’s why [they] gave [him] a job swamping” (59). Although he stays in the bunkhouse with the ranchers, Candy is still alienated from them as he is older and disabled. Candy’s only true companion is his dog. The other workers do not like his dog as they say, “that dog stinks.…

    • 1229 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A man who is good from docility, and not from stern self-control, has no character. In the novella, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, characters face isolation by distancing themselves from others by feeling pain, thinking they are useless, feeling lonely since they are migrants with little hope, and having different varieties of attitudes. Many characters controls one another physically and mentally, which makes it difficult for them to express their feelings towards one another. Having an intellectual disability, or coming from a different background won’t have you accepted for you being who you really are and not being welcomed into society. Crook isolated himself from others who worked at the ranch by living alone in his own barn, being separated from the others since he is colored.…

    • 862 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This is also Candy’s personal decision to stay isolated because he wanted to remember the life of him and his dog…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    What does isolation feel like and, consequently, what effects can it have on people? The characters in Of Mice and Men are troubled by their self struggles of isolationism and their dreams to overcome it. This book goes into depth about the lonely line of work these men endure and how no one cares for each other in this solitary world. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, The feelings of Crooks, Curley’s wife, and George that are expressed in the novel, reveals the theme that people who are isolated, act out in different ways to help them cope with the absence of human companionship. To begin, Crooks is the stable buck on the ranch who does everything all the other workers do, yet, he will never be able to stay in the bunkhouse because…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Great Depression occurred during the the 1930’s and up until the beginning of World War 2. In the United States, there was no such thing as money, possessions, or structure. One night you were in the upper class, the next, you were in the same boat as everyone else, broke. But, in the middle of it all stood an oasis; the Salinas River Valley, which is where our author, John Steinbeck and his story, Of Mice and Men, came about. In his novella, Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck uses George, Crooks, and Curley’s Wife to prove that people will go to extreme measures to escape loneliness.…

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    How does Steinbeck develop the theme of loneliness in Of Mice and Men? In John Steinbeck’s prominent novel: Of Mice and Men, loneliness is an essential dynamic that features in the story. Loneliness is expressed very deeply throughout various characters such as: Curley’s wife, Candy, Crooks, Curley and Lennie. All of these characters have a variety of numerous discriminations.…

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays