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Of Mice and Men is a beautifully written piece of literature with so much depth. Every chapter, every character, and plot careful word choices that were made, and how it was constructed was extremely fun to tear apart and analyze. Because there is so much to take and build from the story I will stick with me major theme I saw that stood out to me. One of Steinbeck's messages in the story; is loneliness. Steinbeck reinforces the idea of loneliness quite often in the story, there wasn’t a chapter where loneliness wasn't mentioned.
One way, if not the most major way Steinbeck included loneliness into the story was with a character, minor yet crucial; Curley's wife. Symbolizing life at the time and how almost if not how all people were feeling. Lonely. Lingering within the characters, not invited but still shows up. Not accepted and pushed away, ignored yet still present. During this unfortunate time, the great depression was happening and men and boys of all ages had to go around leaving their homes and traveling in order to survive. Families are broken and businesses going out as the name itself says, a great depression falls on everyone. A very common emotion felt by everyone but to carry on the emotion was ignored and pushed away. Steinbeck wants audiences to understand how people of the time felt to an extent. He carefully does this by the way he gives character and personality to the characters and in this sense, Curley's wife. In the story, Curley’s wife first is introduced by appearing in front of George and Lennie. She comes trying to appeal to the boy's sexual desires. She arches her back and starts to talk playfully and as if almost seducing. (-“She put her hands behind her back and leaned against the door frame so that her body was thrown forward.-- “If he ain’t, I guess I better look someplace else,” she said playfully.-- She smiled archly and twitched her body.”) her introduction to George and Lennie is a way of how loneliness will soon creep up on them; how at first they come to the new land and now they are soon to work and possibly reach their dream of owning land themselves but loneliness appears so ‘beautifully’ and so hard to ignore as more so shown by Lennie as he knows no better to not be lured in. This is a foreshadowing of the loneliness they will soon feel after the plot continues and eventually, they will no longer have each other. The way in which she appears already gives George and bad feeling which he tells Lennie, who can't look away and finds her pretty that he must not look at or as she is ‘poison’ (-“Gosh, she was purity.” He smiled admiringly. George looked quickly down at him -- “Listen to me, you crazy bastard,” he said fiercely. “Don’t you even take a look at that bitch. I don’t care what she says and what she does. I've seen ‘em poison before, but I saw any piece of jail bait worse than her. You leave her be.’’) Another way that as George is the more intelligent one, he can sense that bad things will happy, that bad things will cause bad things to happen which could result in losing Lennie. As a sense of foreshadowing, he tells Lennie to stay away and that she will lead to nothing but trouble. In a sense, loneliness makes us do things we will regret and doesn’t put us in the right mindset to make proper decisions. Candy and Crooks are also dealing with loneliness and are lonely in different ways that also symbolize different types of loneliness being felt at the time but going more into it would take too much time so I’ll do my best to keep it short and simple.
Steinbeck also enforces loneliness when in the story even the town's name is translated to Soledad, a Spanish word meaning; solitude or alone. It is a very sublets hint of an Easter egg almost. Aside from that the reactions the characters give to George and Lennie as they show up on the ranch and say they travel together are extremely unusual to them and even the Boss assumes that George is just up to no good and has a ‘plan’ of some sort just to use Lennie. ( -“Say—what you sellin’?” - Huh? - “I said what stake you got in this guy? You takin’ his pay away from him?”- “No, ‘course I ain’t. Why ya think I’m sellin’ him out?”- “Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is.” ) Because George and Lennie travel together and they lean on each other- which at the time was extremely unusual and it was every man for himself. Being lonely was one of if not, the most common emotions felt by travelers and the people of the time. The characters at the ranch were confused and in disbelief that the two could travel together and keep each other company. This is Steinbeck’s way of showing that loneliness was far too common for many people and it was uncommon to not be lonely. In times of hardship and depression, man must fend for himself, and that loneliness was only a mere breeze of emotion that had to be ignored no matter how much it blew or wherever direction it went.
There are many ways hidden or transparent that loneliness is shown and highlighted in OMAM, there are also many other symbolic things but that is for now, Steinbeck’s beautifully twisted way with words really made this story so interesting to read and there is just so much to analyze and tear apart and learn from it. A true masterpiece at its finest!
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