John Steinbeck / Of Mice

John Steinbeck / of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men who Nest Alone

In Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, loneliness is one of the central factors. Of all the emotions which motivate the characters, it seems that loneliness or the fear of being alone seem to be the most central. Even the more random cruelties of the men in the book are linked to their loneliness, as George says, "Guys that go around ... alone ... don't have no fun. After a long time they get mean. They get wantin' to fight all the time." (Steinbeck, 827) It is precisely because of this tendency that the central characters, Lennie and George, travel together. Their relationship keeps them both healthier than they would be otherwise, if only because they both have "got somebody to talk to," (Steinbeck 806). The companionship allows them not only to have each other but also between them to create a fantasy concerning the future which gives their lives hope and meaning. Yet despite the hope which Lennie and George's relationship seems to create in the story, its central tragedy is the fact that even such a relationship may eventually fail, despite the best dreams: "Lennie and George have a noble dream... they do try. They try to help each other, and they even enlarge their dream to include [other outcasts] ... What is sad, what is tragic, what is horrible, is that the Dream may not come true because we are -- each and all of us -- too limited, too selfish, too much in conflict with one another." (Scarseth p. 94) This critic has touched upon a little-recognized theme in Of Mice and Men, which is that to some degree humans bring their own suffering down upon their heads. There is significant evidence of this throughout the story. On the practical level, on can see how fear and mistrust can make it so that the men are constantly alienated from the world around them by their own choices. As Slim says, when admiring the way that the two protagonists travel together, "Ain't many guys travel around together... I don't know why. Maybe ever'body in the whole damn world is scared of each other." (Steinbeck, 822) This fear is what keeps the humans in the story from developing friendships that could aleve some of the loneliness. Yet there is a considerably darker, psychological reason why these dreams will never come true -- both metaphysically and in many cases literally -- is because rather than sowing love they sow fear and distrust, and in the end they will actually destroy their dreams with their own hands. This is clear even in the way in which the book itself is written: "Foreshadowing is obvious and suspenseful... Lennie's rough play with mice and the shooting of Candy's old dog foretell subsequent violence. Future action is more or less anticipated by what is said. And the characters themselves make for simplicity of action." ( McCarthy, 60-64) What McCarthy calls foreshadowing, a psychologist might refer to repetitive behavior patterns -- Lennie's rough play will destroy again and again, and the sentiment which shoots an aged dog will develop into the same sentiment that shoots a handicapped farm hand. The true meaning of the story is that life is difficult, and that with fears and incapabilities abounding in humankind, we become responsible for that which destroys our dreams.

The first example of how loneliness works on the characters, and how they themselves consent to and cause this loneliness, is evident in the farmhands other than Lennie. As George has pointed out, these men are intensely lonely. None of them except Curly and Candy are shown as having any kind of real relationship with any other living soul. Of course, Curly's wife actually hates him and Candy gives permission for his canine companion to be killed. So they are all left essentially alone, dreaming impotently of a time when they can have their own place. As Crook says, each of them has "got a little piece of land in his head. An' never a God damn one of 'em ever gets it. Just like heaven... Ever body wants a little piece." (Steinbeck, 852) So they tend to become violent and crude and pointless with their lives, spending all of their money on paying for whores and gambling. There are, of course, a number of reasons for this deep-seated loneliness that seem to pervade the book. Part of it is that the very universe they exist in is one which tend towards alienation of the workers. These characters "Represent the people who work on the farms and in the factories but do not own any part of them, people who earn a wage and have little or nothing more. And in constructing the novella this way Steinbeck wants to draw the readers attention to what he sees as certain urgent and widespread social problems." (Attell) The workers at the farm do not own either the means of production nor the product, and so they are essentially operating as nothing more or less than humanoid farming implements. Because they have no investment in the process, they cannot form a real relationship with the process in which they are the leading participants -- they have no roots. A job, one might say, wouldn't heal loneliness. However, there is a degree to which working for one's self creates a situation in which stability is possible, and friendships and families could blossom. "Everybody wants a little bit of land, not much. Jus' Som'thin' that was his...and there couldn't nobody throw him off of it. I never had none. I planted crops for damn near ever'body in this state, but they wasn't my crops, and when I harvested'em, it wasn't none of my harvest," says Candy. (Steinbeck pg 853) Yet they could have had land, all of them, if for just a year they had saved their monthly pay and at the end of that time bought a farm. Moreover, they are all (with the possible exception of Crook) capable of building relationships which could sustain them in the struggle of life. Yet they choose not to do so. When George, for example, speaks of the value of having a wife, he says, "You give me a good whore house every time.. A guy can go in an' get drunk and get everything outta his system all at once, an' no messes. And he knows how much it's gonna set him back. These here jail baits is just set on the trigger..." (Steinbeck, 838) Even if the characters cannot be blamed for preferring whore over honest women, one can quickly see that love and companionship should still be possible. They could try to become friends with the whores they use, and (in what would seem a strangely revolutionary move to them) maybe even start friendships among themselves. The fact this fellowship never actually evolved, reflects the self-destructive nature of the characters.

Curley's wife is another excellent example of what it means to be alienated and lonely. In fact, she is probably the most lonely of the characters, for she has been so removed from human contact that she does not even warrant having a name of her own in the narrative. So efficient is Steinbeck at portraying the way in which she is divorced from the sympathies and camaraderie of all those around her that he has succeeded in even divorcing her from the sympathies of many of the readers. Though she does make one very inappropriate joke about having Crook lynched, and otherwise appears to be socially awkward, she is not so irredeemable a character that a casual, moral reader should assume she deserves to die. Yet the characters speak so poorly of her, and go to such great lengths to avoid her, that it seems even critics begin to buy into the poor press regarding her, as evidenced here: "We cannot sympathize with the girl. . . [she is] A restless, overpainted girl." (French) Yet, despite her casual race-oriented threats, she is not entirely unsympathetic. Though the ranch-hands seem confused by her attentions, the reader surely must realize that this is her tragedy as much as it is any other characters. She is in the worst situation of any of the characters, because she is actually legally and physically under the control of her husband who attempts to keep her isolated. As she pitifully speaks of it: "I get lonely... You can talk to people, but I can't talk to nobody by Curley. Else he gets mad. " (862) If one is going to truly understand this work, it seems imperative that they do have sympathy on Curley's wife.

"As she recounts her personal history to Lennie the reader realizes that she, too, must be understood within the context of her surroundings. We see that insofar as she is constrained by unjust social norms, she is not unlike the figures of George and Lennie and Crooks. In her life she is trapped first by her mother's tyranny and the claustrophobia of small town Salinas ....and then by her unfortunate marriage to Curley, whom... she does not even like." (Attell) All of her attempts to talk to the other characters, disastrous as they potentially might be, can be seen as attempts to make any kind of human contact. The solution for the farmhands in their loneliness is more simple -- they need to learn to reach out and make friends, and commit to each other as people in their journey. Curley's wife has a more difficult quest before her, because she has already tried to take that first step (marrying Curley was no doubt an attempt to break out of her loneliness), and now any further steps are being restricted by him. On can definitely see why she asks, "Wha's the matter with me? Ain't I got a right to talk to nobody? Whatta they think I am, anyways? You're a nice guy. I don't know why I can't talk to you... I ain't used to living like this." (Steinbeck, 862) Yet she too is not totally helpless. She could originally have made different decisions, and not married someone with whom she had nothing truly in common. Even at this moment, she could choose to leave Curley and seek out a form of life that would allow her to communicate and share with others. Regardless of these things, one also senses that her eventually death is somehow directly related to her cruel words to Crook and her refusal to give Lennie the space he needs -- in this, she, like the others, is very much the master of her fate.