In John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie struggle to achieve their ultimate dream too save up and have a farm of their own. Lennie is a little delayed and George is just a typical guy so they use their friendship to stay together and make it in the real world. While spending time on the farm, Lennie starts to talk to Curley’s wife. They both want to be with someone so they aren’t lonesome In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck uses George and Lennie’s relationship to confirm the central idea of loneliness in the novel. The novel starts off and is set in Soledad. which means lonely. At the beginning they get a job working on a farm together. Lennie is mildly retarded and has great physical strength.
As they work from ranch to ranch. Lennie relies on George for guidance and help. Rather than them both wasting their eamings, they both try to save what they make in the hope of buying a small farm of their own someday, While working at one ranch they meet a co-worker named Candy whom tries to help them financially. Before this dream can happen, Lennie kills the wife of the boss‘s son. As the novel concludes, George has to kill Lennie for his benefit. Later he goes into town and abandons his dream by spending his money, The main cause of George and Lennie’s lonesomeness and that of all the people at the ranch was a lack of a home.
The only thing that kept the two men going was their friendship with each other and the hope to soon get a place of their own in the novel George and Lennie mention what their dream place is going to be like. ”Someday we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house, and a couple of acres and a cow and some pigs. Throughout the book the reference to having a place of their own is stressed. It is a deeper dream for Lennie than George because he is always asking to talk about it. It is here where the friendship between both men is starting to develop as they share the same basic dream. In the early stages of the book it is brought to the reader’s attention that before George and Lennie met, they didn’t really have anyone there for them, nor did they have any family members around to give them support. As farmers, their discovery gave them the chance to make a friendship: “Guys Like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world, they got no family.
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After they start talking, it was clear that they both don’t want to be alone their whole life, Steinbeck points out that most of the people that work on the ranch don’t have anything to look ahead to. George and Lennie wanted to have something to look forward to, and that is why they hope that it won’t happen to them: “With us it ain’t like that, we got a future”. This is where the hope of them accomplishing their dreams comes into play Later, Lennie goes on to tell that it won’t happen to them because they have each other to look over each others This shows their friendship covering up the true loneliness of the charactets. The novel suggests doubts of someone getting their dream many times.
This is where the character “Crooks” joins in. He states that he has seen a hundred of men in his time and that everyone has a hunger of a piece of land in their head and none of them ever get it. He uses the story of people going to heaven, not everyone gets to go to heaven; therefore, being realistic, not everyone gets land for themselves: “I seen guys nearly crazy with loneliness for land”. Here it suggests that George and Lennie might not get a place, but they refuse to believe it. The last thing that they want is to be alone and that is why they hope nothing will happen: “I tell you a guy gets too lonely, then he gets sick” (Steinbeck 89) Lennie and George reassure that they won’t be alone, and all of their dreams of having a place will come true George and Lennie have few differences in the novel.
However, they join forces because they need a friendship and it would be easier to raise money for their dream with more than one partner. The Discouragement of their dream is in the opening chapter when George and Lennie’s convetsation starts out it revels that they had to run away from their last job” (French 89). It is well known that they are afraid of what might happen if their plan doesn’t come through for them. The two are afraid of losing the dream that they had been dwelling upon for their whole lives; this is the last thing they wanted to happen. Another use of loneliness in the novel is when George and Lenny meet a man on the ranch named Candy.
Candy doesn‘t really have a family, but he has a dog that he has had since it was a puppy. Carlson, a man on the ranch that didn’t like it killed it one night because it smelled funny and was old and couldn’t do anything like a young dog could do. Candy gets extremely depressed about him killing the dog. and out of loneliness, tries tojoin into George and Lennie’s dream of having a place of their own: “‘S’pose I went in with you guys'”, Old Candy who was afraid of being alone wanted to have some friends. He offered to give up everything he had, so that he wouldn‘t end up alone, which was enough to get them off to a good start on buying this piece of land that George has had his eye on for some time.
“Of Mice and Men is the story of men in a fallen world. They were set to the challenge to break the wandering and loneliness and return to the perfect world which was their dream”. George and Lennie were committed to accomplishing the impossible in this case, which was To have land and not to be alone. One of the themes in Of Mice and Men is that men fear loneliness, which they need someone to be with, and to talk to who will offer understanding and companionship. All that they had was their little friendship, a dream and a lot of hope. In reality of it all, that wasn‘t enough to make it come true, Steinbeck’s setting shows an act of a man’s isolation and soledad, or ‘loneliness’. Steinbeck functions their friendship to point out the loneliness that is really there.
The influence of George and Lenny’s mutual commitment of their dream has broken the grip of loneliness and solitude in which they exist. Even though they don’t realize it, there is a fear of being alone. In all of the hopeless longing for a home George and Lennie are like other people on the ranch, In their friendship for each other they are not like other people. Steinbeck makes the use of their close relationship to point up the loneliness of the typical ranch hand. Finally, at the end of the novel when George is lorced to shoot Lennie, it is to emphasize the aloneness of the typical ranch hand.
Both of the characters were afraid of being alone and they always hoped that their dream of having a place would come true. There were excessive points where the proceeds of George and Lennie were completely out of loneliness, In the novel a home remains a dream, and their friendship covers up the loneliness that is there. The characters are isolated from each other and they have never really had companionship or other friends. In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck used George and Lennie’s relationship to emphasize the theme of loneliness in the novel.
