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| The
aspect of loneliness in “Of Mice and Men”
by John Steinbeck
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“The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft agley [often go wrong]
And leave us nought but grief and pain
For promised joy!”
Robert Burns
1.Introduction
Analyzing John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”
makes the reader experience fixed feelings. As John Steinbeck
himself is known to be an extraordinary writer the book “Of
Mice and Men” completely confirms this belief. John
Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men” is one
of the most prominent works of the time of the Great Depression,
written in 1937. This novel reveals the reader the life of
people of that period, their immense desire to become happy
and the “loneliness” they feel in their hearts.
It shows the dream of two people that is ruined, and as they
have nothing except this dream after they lose it –
everything is senseless. Destiny forces them to stay tete-a-tete
with themselves and their whole being is “loneliness”,
because no one is able to help each of them after what happened.
This book consisting of one hundred pages is the “symbolic”
description of the dream that runs away after having been
torn into pieces and Lenny Small was the one to destroy this
dream.
This is a book about the last hope that two people have, the
hope they have put each day of their life in, the hope that
leads to desperation and loneliness.
2.Dreaming…and loneliness again
Lennie Small, a huge but mentally retarded young man and George
Milton, an average guy, are friends that have a common dream
they want to achieve. They try to find it in the ranch of
Soledad. Occasionally, “Soledad” means “loneliness”
in Spanish and this describes the place better than any other
description. Only George and Lennie work hard and are always
together, trying to earn money in order to achieve their dream
– to buy a ranch of their own in Soledad. Before they
enter the ranch they make a stop at a creek. George says that
if Lennie ever gets into any trouble he should run and hide
in the creek until George comes to rescue him. Everything
these guys do in the ranch in the Salinas Valley is they strive
to survive and to get the least that is possible to get. They
face rejection from the ranchers at first, and then it gets
a little better, but still Lennie faces the hatred from Curly
the ranch owner’s son. As Lennie is very strong he once
starts touching Curly wife’s hair and kills her. He
has to escape to the creek. George and Lennie’s dream
is ruined and George comes and kills Lennie at the creek,
as he understands that there is no hope for them anymore.
What happens to George after that? Something that would have
happened to any man, when he understands that there is no
hope left. Him and Lennie working hard every day in order
to realize their dream was the last opportunity to LIVE, and
not to exist. Desperation… Hurt…and loneliness
again.
3. The message of the book
The book is very tragic. Steinbeck focuses much on the ranchers
in his novel showing the anger they had for George and Lennie,
and the isolation they experienced because of that. They were
“aliens” there, and though till Lennie’s
death they stay together, they are still lonely and have nobody
to support them. Nevertheless it is not the ranchers, but
Lennie’s strength that he cannot hold leads to the consequences
of a ruined dream for both of the man.
A big message delivered through the case of Candy and the
old dog becomes the key to novel resolution. As soon as the
dog got old and became useless the rancher suggests Candy
to shot the dog. Candy does it, but later thinks that he should
have shot himself, too. Candy shot the dog to put it out of
the misery it was facing. The same thing George did to Lennie.
George’s only reason for living was the achievement
of his dream to have a ranch. Lennie destroys his dream and
George realizes that he has to shot him in order to “put
him out of misery” – he decides to live out this
loneliness and desperation on his own. The book shows the
most important – the incapability of people to escape
their fate and thoughts, as people during the Great Depression
had nothing but hope and if the hope was gone – everything
was gone. It became more than loneliness…it was a fatality.
It is not just a story of Lennie and George and their loneliness
in the world but also a story about all the people during
Great Depression and their lonely hopes that never came to
life and still they got a little difference: ”Guys like
us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world.
They got no family. They don’t belong no place...With
us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody
to talk to that gives a damn about us"[Steinbeck 13-14].
Steinbeck does not get into a general analysis of the characters
but he reveals them and their attitudes through little things.
And this creates a perfect base for understanding that Lennie
was just the way he was and there was nothing to do about
it. He was just a man, the same with George. And the truth
is that he believed that they are different: ”We are
different. Tell it how it is, George”[Steinbeck, 34].
They were different, lonely but different because they had
George’s dream.
Loneliness was a terrible load in the heart of all these people
of that time including Lennie and George. Steinbeck reveals
the theme of loneliness through George’s words: “I
seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain’t
no good. They don’t have no fun. After a long time they
get mean. They get wantin’ to fight all the time”[Steinbeck,
45]. That is what loneliness made with people back then. Lennie
was the only creature that made George different from others
and his tragedy is that he has to kill this creature with
his own hands. The end of everything in the book is George’s
silent soul torments of losing a dream and being lonely again.
4. Conclusion
Lennie’s and Georges dream to have a piece of land was
like a dream to be happy, but as Crooks said: “nobody
never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s
just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’
about it, but it’s jus’ in their head” [Steinbeck,
81]. What George and Lennie did was they were staying together
sharing their loneliness and alienation.
Bibliography:
1. Steinbeck, John “Of Mice and Men”/Penguin/1993.
2. http://www.novelguide.com/ofmiceandmen/themeanalysis.html
Of Mice and Men – theme analysis
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