Of Mice and Men Loneliness.

Of Mice and Men shows the reader a culture that is damaged by loneliness.
To what extent do you agree?

‘Of Mice and Men’ was written by John Steinbeck in 1937. In the 1930’s America was suffering from the Great Depression.   Many people suffered as a consequence and were looking for jobs to earn an income. In the novel, Steinbeck describes life on a ranch near Soledad. Throughout the novel he describes the interaction between all the people on the ranch with their different backgrounds and dreams. Living as a ranch worker is a solitary existence which is overpowered by loneliness and therefore I agree with the statement that it is a culture damaged by loneliness. In this essay I will describe the characters that are most damaged by loneliness. They are George, Candy and Crooks, two of the ranch workers, Curley and Curley’s wife. Curley is the son of the boss of the ranch.
‘Of Mice and Men’ is set in California in the Salinas valley. Steinbeck knew this area well because he was born here. He immediately raises the question of loneliness by saying that George and Lennie were a few miles south of Soledad. Soledad means loneliness in Spanish. George and Lennie are on their way to the ranch after having run away from another farm in Weed. Throughout the novel all characters will admit their loneliness in some way, but George and Lennie set the tone. At the end of chapter one, George says;
‘Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. . . . With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don’t have to sit in no bar room blowin’ in our jack jus’ because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us.’
This quote is the beginning of the story that George tells Lennie about their dream life, in this story it describes the lonely life of an average ranch worker, no...