Of Mice and Men

1004 Words5 Pages
anonymous
Core 4
12, October 2012
World Counts: 986 words
Of Mice and Men essay

‘Of Mice and Men’, a novel written by John Steinbeck, is about two men, George and Lennie who travel around the western coast of the United States to look for somewhere to work. Once settled on a ranch doing basic laboring, they mingle with the different workers and gain an understanding of those people’s various problem, hopes and dreams. The most important themes of, ‘Of Mice and Men’, are loneliness and sadness. Steinbeck conveys these themes through his characters by expressing the sad and lonely lives they lead. The character of Crooks, Candy and Curley’s wife all have to endure different types of loneliness and sadness. One very lonely character in this book is Crooks. Crooks is an African American doomed to spend the rest of his life in isolation. He is constantly bullied by other people on the ranch because he was black and apparently ‘stinks’. Nobody allowed him neither to be in the bunk house, nor to play card games and he had to sleep in a barn. Everybody thought that Crooks had no feelings because he was black but it turns out that he is really sensitive and lonely. When he was with Lennie, he says "S'pose you didn't have nobody. S'pose you couldn't go into the bunk house and play rummy 'cause you was black. How'd you like that? S'pose you had to sit out here an' read books. Sure you could play horseshoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain't no good. 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. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick" Crooks felt extremely lonely all the time because he had no one to talk with and share his thought. This speech is an obvious plea for help. Crooks argues that loneliness
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