Of Mice and Men is rife with lonely characters, all looking for friendship and a better existence. However, it is interesting to note that no one is really alone: people live and work in close proximity to one another and have different forms of relationships. The theme is introduced early in the novel, when George states to Lennie that ‘Guys like us, who work on the ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place.’ (P31-32) The use of the superlative ‘loneliest’ suggests that the migrant drifters are outcaste from society, hoping that one day they will find their place in the world. However, George goes on to state that he and Lennie are different from other ranch workers as they have each other. Therefore, Steinbeck is creating a world where isolation and loneliness is everywhere, yet friendship is an escape from it.
The friendship formed between George and Lennie is the only true relationship presented in the novel. Characters such as Crooks and Candy are too different from the other ranchers to be viewed as friends; Curley is just too unpleasant and mean; the Boss and Slim may have buddies, but we never meet them as a reader; and Carlson is just a bit of a dick (who really shoots a guy’s dog?) One could suggest that this is Steinbeck’s clever tactic not to overload the short novel with a plethora of unnecessary and forgettable characters (such as Whit – Who? Indeed), but it also helps to emphasise the loneliness of most characters, when compared to the friendship George and Lennie have.
Steinbeck litters his narrative with characters on the ranch who are lonely: rootless souls with no family connection or friends; but the three loneliest people in the novel are those who have no chance of escaping in the future:
Candy is old. He has one hand, the other lost in a farming accident. His best friend is a dog, which Carlson takes out and shoots. As a swamper who cleans the living quarters of the ranch, he is denied the normal, masculine camaraderie of the heavy duty bucking of barley. He apparently has no family he feels he can go and live with in his old age.
Candy’s loneliness is reflected in his eagerness to gossip to newcomers George and Lennie when they arrive on the ranch, and is ready and willing to embrace and fund the dream George shares with Lennie. He enjoys George’s fantasy that he can ‘hoe in the garden even after [he] ain’t no good at it.’ (P88) but has a clear understanding that he will no longer be needed on the ranch soon. Steinbeck uses the metaphor of Candy’s dog to show that time is rapidly running out for him and that the boss will ‘can’ him just as soon as his use becomes unwelcome. Candy laments, ‘You seen what they done to my dog tonight? They say he wasn’t no good to himself nor nobody else. When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me. But they won’t do nothing like that. I won’t have no place to go’. (P. 88) This evokes a feeling of pity and sadness in the reader, as Candy would rather end his suffering than continue his lonely and isolated existence. However, this feeling changes ever-so-slightly when his loneliness is matched by his bitter disappointment and anger when he finds Curley’s wife dead, and realises that now the dream will never come true. However, if one considers the cultural context of the time, as well as how tough and solitary his life is, we could perhaps forgive his lack of sympathy over the death of a ‘tart’ he believes has shattered his future.
Just like many characters in the novel, Steinbeck introduces Crooks from the perspective of other people before we meet him properly in section four. Characteristically, he is ‘aloof’ in his room, where he spends the majority of his time. Crooks is even lonelier than old Candy, due to him being a black, crippled man. He is entirely excluded from the bunk house, except for one occasion mentioned by Candy, when Smitty ‘took after him’ and ‘woulda killed the nigger’ if he was able to use his feet in the fight. (P. 41) In this brief introduction by Candy to George and Lennie, although rep