Loneliness

A detailed Summary of Loneliness

Loneliness is a state of being alone in sadness, resulting from being forsaken or abandoned you have no one to talk to, no one to trust, nor anyone to keep company with.   In this novel Of Mice And Men it deals with loneliness by looking for comfort in a friend, but settling for an ear of a stranger.   Although these characters seem at ease and friendly on the surface, a deep sense of loneliness lingers in the hearts of  Crooks, George, and Curley's wife, they are all desperate to find an escape from being alone from the rest of the society.

       Crooks leads a lonely life.   He lives according to the rule that no black man is allowed to enter a white man's home.   Crooks loneliness is a result of rejection from everyone else on the ranch.   As a black man with a physical handicap, crooks is  forced to live his life alone in a barn because of his color.   When Lennie visits him in his room, Crooks bitter, sad and touching outcome reveals as he tells Lennie:

"A guy needs somebody--to be near him. 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." (page72-3)

Crooks openness of his inner self, and his ability to

speak how he feels to a stranger illustrates how lonely he gets.Futhermore, as bitter as he is about him being away from the other men, Crooks is grateful for Lennie's company, and when Candy enters the room, it becomes difficult for him to hide his pleasure with anger. The only relationship Crooks can find is with his books. When Lennie talk about the dream farm he is going to have with George, Crooks hesitanly  asks Lennie an  way for him to escape his loneliness,   ".......If you ... guys would want a hand to work for nothing-- just his keep, why I'd come an' lend a hand" (page 76). Crooks becomes so desperate for a relationship that he offers to work for George and Lennie for free, just to escape his loneliness. By the end of this book Crooks is unable to overcome his loneliness because Lennie dies in a matter of days, and no white man in his right mind would care to step a foot in Crooks lonely life.

       George, a short- tempered but loving and caring friend, is  also lost in loneliness.   At the beginning of the novel, George tells his thoughts on loneliness in a story  he tells to lennie  about him and Lennie living on a farm: Guys like us, that work on ranches are the loneliest guys in the world. They've got no family and they don't belong no place. They've got nothing to look ahead to." Well we aint like that. We got a future. We've got someone to talk to who gives a damn about us. Them other guys

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Approximate Word count = 957
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels