Of Mice and Men Loneliness

Of Mice and Men Loneliness

Loneliness is not just an emotion, but a state of mind. Do you know why? I can be lonely yet physically be in a crowded room with a bunch of people. It is one of the scariest and painful emotions people will ever have to suffer. It is a basic part of human life and no matter how hard humans are driven to finding freedom they always have a deep sense of loneliness. In the novel, Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck expresses through different characters the deep sense of loneliness of California ranch life in the 1930s and illustrates how people are driven to find companionship.

Loneliness is an impossible emotion of life that nobody can avoid especially during the Great Depression. The 1930s was a tragic time and loneliness was a very common thing. After World War 1, many people found themselves with nowhere to go and no family to go to. Also, back in the early 1930s, the society was filled with racism where the blacks and the whites had separate facilities for socializing and living. John Steinbeck portrays loneliness during this time period through characterization, sexism, racism and relationships between the characters. The novel takes place a few miles south of Soledad which in Spanish means solitude, implying both a physical isolation and a psychological loneliness (Zeitler). As a result to the Great Depression and Wall Street crash, America in the 1930s has now become a place of hardship, cruelty and more isolation. This affected all aspects of living and people were forced to live solitary lives as it was the only way they could survive and make it through the Great Depression (Meyer). The novel Also, shows that even through all this isolation, some people are still driven to try and find friendship in order to escape from loneliness.

The characters represent loneliness that was happening during the Great Depression because despite living closer together they were still focused on where they next pay check was going to come from and if they were going to have a place to call home one day. In Of Mice and Men readers get a closer look at what life was like for ranch men during the hard times of the Great Depression. Unemployment was high at this time and men had to move around a lot looking for work. They were never in one place long enough to form any relationships. Reader’s notice this in the very first chapter when George says this to Lennie “Guys like us that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They do not belong no place… We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us” (Steinbeck 13). Ranch hands are ideal types of people to portray as being lonely, because their constant travel leaves them no one to talk to.

George and Lennie have an in separately bond from beginning to the end of the novel. They consider each other family unlike any other ranch men. Instead,