More then just a storyteller, John Steinbeck was a social critic. His novel Of Mice and Men deals with many themes that reflect the time in which he lived and in which he wrote. One of the many themes in the novel is loneliness. Crooks, the black stable-hand, is always lonely. George and Lennie travel together and they are never lonely. Curley’s wife also suffered from loneliness in the novel.
Although Crooks is a good person he is separated from the other men on the ranch because of his color .Crooks color separates him into sleeping into the barn. However, the men do not want to him even when he is outside of the barn. Crooks is therefore lonely all the time. He has dreams and wishes like all of the other men. He has many similarities to them that he will never know about because of the seperation. However, he is held back by his color. It is evident that Crooks is lonely because he very rarely gets the chance to speak with the other men. While Crooks was speaking to Lennie he said, “It’s just the talking. It’s just bein’ with another guy. That’s all” Steinbeck 71.
This shows how Crooks would like to have somebody whom he could speak to. The loneliness in which Crooks faces causes him to come off as an angry, bitter man. When he gets the chance to speak with Lennie it is very evident that Crooks attitude is the effect of his loneliness. Crooks is sometimes able to escape from the loneliness temporarily by reading books. The book however, will eventually come to and end and his loneliness will return just as quickly.
George and Lennie are very different from the other men on the ranch. Most if not all of the other men had nobody to depend on. George had Lennie there for support and to keep him company. Lennie had George there to help him stay out of trouble, if possible. Lennie and George did many things together. The men on the ranch were not used to seeing this type of connection between people. Therefore, immediately the men assumed that George and Lennie were homosexuals. This shows that people on the ranch were so used to the loneliness in which they were all living in that they did not recognize a strong friendship.
Although George and Lennie do have a relationship and are not always lonely there are times in which they do feel lonely. When Lennie is separated from George he escapes his loneliness by touching soft things. He likes to touch soft things because that makes him feel comfort which takes the loneliness away. When George went into town he had a drink of liquor to take his mind off of the loneliness he was feeling. George and Lennie were speaking about how the other men are lonely and have no family. George then said, “With us it ain’t like that. We got a
