Examples Of Loneliness In Of Mice And Men

A guy needs somebody-to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody...I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick” (Steinbeck 72-73), Crooks, an african american migrant worker, explains. Loneliness is a powerful theme in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Being lonely, whatever race, gender, or belief, will make anyone go to the point of insanity where it will affect you and those around you. Taking place in the 1930’s, during the time of the Great Depression. Migrant workers commonly traveled alone at the time in search of work. But George and Lennie, the main characters of this novella, are migrant workers who travel together. Steinbeck shows how these two men stand out from the others because they look out of each …show more content…
Because Crooks is black, many of the white men think he is below them, so they segregate him on the ranch; resulting to: “Well you keep your place n***. I could get you strung up so easy it ain’t even funny”(81). Curley’s wife tells Crooks, just because he spoke against her when she was invading his space and coming into his room.So having Curley’s wife and the other men have a higher power than him makes Crooks feel isolation; showing how she gets mad, she then threatens to blackmail him because he is black so she could get him killed with a snap of a finger. While Candy tells Crooks about their dream house, Crooks tells Candy how he can help at their own farm even if he is not as good as the others: “I ain’t so crippled I can’t work like a son-of-a-b*** if i want”(76). In this scene, Crooks is saying this about himself to show that, yes he is crippled, but the other men discriminate him more than how bad his injury actually is; because he can still work hard even if it is not as good as before his injury. “You got no right to come in my room. This here’s my room. Nobody got any right in here but me”(68). Soon after saying this, Crooks changes his mind because he feels alone:”come in and set a while...You might as well set down”(69). Changing his mind about letting Lennie, Crooks knows that he isolates himself …show more content…
As a result to people not understanding his ways, Lennie gets discriminated against, because people do not like things they can’t understand. He has never tried to hurt others, but people keep hurting him anyways, calling him nuts and crazy all the time will eventually make him go to the point of nuts and crazy. So Lennie is always feeling out of place and which is making him have that feeling of loneliness: “If I was alone I could live so easy...I got you! You can’t keep a job and you lose me ever’ job I get...You crazy son-of-a-b*** “(11). To clarify, George is exploding on how his life could be so much better without Lennie. Which gets Lennie thinking that he is the problem and how he is discriminated because he is different