Of Mice and Men: Short but not so sweet

   

Eleanor Kraatz

 I decided to read Of Mice and Men because it was very short and I had it at my house. However, in its meer 100 pages it was incredibly eye-opening and sad. The book tells the story of two migrant workers; a small, smart man named George and his strong but mentally disabled friend Lennie. The book does not mention specifically what Lennie's problem is, but he has a terrible memory, poor social skills, and although he is kind, he panics when he is confused. This often gets him in trouble. For example, he becomes fascinated with a women's soft dress and wants to touch it, when he touches the dress the women screams which frightens Lennie. Instead of letting go he grips onto the dress much tighter which eventually leads to the woman telling others she has been raped, and Lennie and George must leave the town. He also is schizophrenic and tends to fixate on very specific things. Because of his issues he travels with George wherever he goes which is not normal for many migrant workers. 

    Although George and Lennie have each other one of the most prominent themes in the book is loneliness. In the story George, Candy (a worker on the ranch), Crooks (a black man working on the ranch), and Curley's wife (the wife of a worker on the ranch)  all admit to how lonely they are. The story also shows that even when people are isolated and long for companionship they still try to tear each other down. It was sad to see the characters, even at their weakest, still tried to crush others dreams and ambitions. 

    "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place...They ain't got nothing to look ahead to." This is said by George in the very beginning of the book and is shown by many of the supporting characters. One of those character is Crooks, an old, black stable-hand. Because Crooks is black, he sleeps away from all the other workers and spends most of his time alone. The following are quotes from the book from when characters explain their loneliness to each other 

 "S'pose you didn't have nobody. S'pose you couldn't go into the bunk house and play rummy 'cause you was black...A guy needs somebody-to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you." -Crooks

"I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely" -Curley's Wife 

Despite knowing about each other's loneliness the characters don't provide each other with companionship. Instead they try and make them feel worse about themselves by telling each their dreams are impossible. It was sad to read because you would think that the characters would realise they do not need to be lonely when they are surrounded by other people. However, the characters allow fear and jealousy to make each other more miserable.