Curley's Wife's Loneliness example essay topic

During the era of the Great Depression in the 1930's, many people lost their jobs and became very lonely. This was around the time when John Steinbeck released his famous book about these "bindle stiffs". The book was called, Of Mice and Men. Loneliness is one of the major themes of this novel. Several of the characters in the book are alone.

In this novel, John Steinbeck shows how being alone affects different characters. Each is affected in a different way. Throughout the novel, the theme of loneliness is mostly expressed in the important characters of Candy, Curley's wife and Crooks. Candy, the ranch handyman, lost his hand in an accident and worries about his future on the ranch. He fears that his age is making him useless and unwanted.

Candy's age and handicap also contribute to his loneliness. Many of the men reject Candy because of these things and he fears that he will eventually come to the same end as his old dog. Candy is crushed by Lennie and George's dream to get their own piece of land and 'live off the fatta the lan'. This dream lifted Candy's spirit and only set him up for a bigger disappointment.

This made Candy not only a victim of loneliness, but also of disillusionment. He also feels the burden of loneliness and shows it by his relationship with his sheep dog. The dog, being described as "ancient", "stinky", and "half-blind", had been in Candy's life and his companion for a very long time and Candy had grown attached to it. He said he, 'had him since he was a pup' and he used to 'herd sheep with him.

' Once the other farmhands had finally gotten fed up with it and stated that the dog needed to be put out of its misery Candy was extremely reluctant to turn it over and let him go. After hearing the shot ring outside, all Candy could do was turn his face towards a wall and not look around. Certainly Candy found this dog to be a loyal companion of his and he had developed a strong relationship with it over the years, which helped him cope with his loneliness on the ranch. Whenever one is taking a deeper look at Of Mice and Men one will probably get a sense of how depressing the ranch really is. These are just a few examples of how different characters dealt with their loneliness. However effective or ineffective their cures were, one still must feel a certain amount of sympathy towards them.

All throughout the book Curley's Wife is very "open" to everyone she meets. She and Curley's "so-called" marriage can interpret the reason for this. The relationship between Curley's Wife and Curley seems to be somewhat unstable as he is always asking "Any you guys seen my wife?" This also shows how protective Curley seems to be as he is always checking up on where his wife is. Curley's insecurity seems to cage in his wife from having any kind of a friendship with any other men. In turn, the wife gets so sick of being isolated like this and relieves her loneliness by conducting secret conversations with many other men on the ranch.

As a result many of the ranch hands see her as a tramp or a 'tart with a roving-eye' but it can be viewed that all she really wants is a person to talk to. Curley's Wife's loneliness is also a big part of her death at the end of the book. She became so lonely at one point at the ranch that she is forced to talk to the only person that would pay any attention to her, Lennie. She explains her loneliness to the slightly retarded man by saying, 'I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely... I get lonely.

You can talk to people, but I can't talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad. How'd you like not to talk to nobody?' After Lennie mentions to her that he loves soft materialistic objects, she lets Lennie touch her hair, she begins to yell and Lennie panics and begins to shake her to her death. If not for her extreme loneliness, she would not have died in that way at that time.

Crooks also feels a great deal of loneliness, as he is an outcast on the ranch. He lives in his own room where hardly anybody ever bothers him. He is never invited to play cards or do anything fun with the other guys on the ranch. One day a curious Lennie asked, "Why ain't you wanted?" Crooks replies "Cause I'm black. They play cards in there, but I can't play because I'm black. They think I stink.

Well I tell you, you all stink to me". Crooks' attitude towards this is shown when he saw Lennie playing with his puppy outside of Crooks' quarters. Crooks states that "if me, as a black man, is not allowed in the white quarters, then white men are not allowed in mine". Crooks also explains to Lennie that the only thing he does to occupy his time alone, is reading books. Crooks tells Lennie that it does not make him happy because the books he reads does not fulfill his needs socially and that he just needs a person to play with, other than the one horseshoe game he plays once a night. However this is merely a front as the more open side of Crooks is shown later on in the book.

In conclusion, many of the characters on the ranch have some kind of connection between loneliness in Of Mice and Men, especially Candy, Curley's Wife and Crooks. Loneliness was common among 'bindle stiffs' because of the type of lifestyle they lived. They rarely stayed in one place long enough to develop a serious relation ship. This was very common during the era of the Great Depression..