What Is The Theme Of Loneliness In Of Mice And Men

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Why are people lonely? Is there a different reason for everybody’s loneliness? Loneliness is a basic part of human life, but is an obstacle in life that one would do anything to avoid. This inevitable barrier to a content and happy life is a feeling that cannot even be avoided by the strongest people in life. In the novella Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, loneliness is a significantly major issue shown throughout this book that are expressed by many characters. Their reason for feeling lonely plays a major role as their obstacle to a life free of loneliness and isolation. It is clear that an important theme of this story is that people are affected by loneliness in different ways. Steinbeck’s work Of Mice and Men shows loneliness through …show more content…
The character that can best exemplify this reason/cause is Curley’s wife. Ever since Curley’s wife married Curley, she has constantly been watched by Curley, being allowed no freedom/allowance to talk to anybody but Curley. An example to best show Curley’s wife’s loneliness through lack of freedom is when Curley’s wife is trying to talk to Lennie in the barn. Lennie tells her that he shouldn’t be talking to her; Curley’s wife admits her loneliness, saying, “Why can’t I talk to you? I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely” (86). This illustrates how Curley’s wife feels lonely because of her lack of freedom to talk to anyone. The fact that she is restricted to talk to people also informs Steinbeck’s readers that her role as a woman does not give her equality compared to men. How this reveals the theme is that she cannot talk about her dreams and hopes with others, both because of her lack of freedom to talk to others and also because of her her current experience with gender discrimination as a woman, which causes her to be lonely. Furthermore, Curley’s wife’s loneliness through lack of freedom can be shown when she is trying to tell Lennie that she isn’t doing any harm to them, and says, “Don’t you worry about talkin’ to me. What kinda harm am I doin’ to you? Seems like they ain’t none of them cares about how I gotta live” (88). This reveals that loneliness affects Curley’s wife in a way that she feels the need to reassure people of the real reason for why she talks to them, which is that she is lonely. Curley’s wife is lonely and isn’t cared about by other people. She never gets to talk to anybody, because of her restriction and lack of freedom as Curley’s wife and as a woman. This is important because Curley’s wife feels she is being misunderstood for the real reason why she talks to people, and she wants someone to

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