In chapter 4 Crooks says: “A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody”.
HOW DOES THE WRITER EXPLORE THE THEME OF LONELINESS THROUGH CROOKS AND ONE OTHER CHARACTER IN THE BOOK?
Loneliness is one of the major themes in “Of Mice and Men”. Steinbeck explores it through the characters, by writing about their feelings or through their actions and reactions. It’s a feeling that gets to them and hurts them. Nearly all the characters in the novel get a taste of it throughout the story. All the characters are in need of friendship, when George says to Lennie: “I want you to stay with me!” we can see the fear of loneliness and how strong it is by the short and simple structure of the sentence, it’s direct. The author is aware of the genuine loneliness and tragedy of dispossessed Americans (due to the Great Depression). America in the 1930s was a world full of migrant workers and isolated individuals.
In the novel we meet two characters that represent perfectly the theme of loneliness: Crooks and Curley’s wife.
Crooks is the coloured stable-buck. He is isolated from the others because of his skin colour, “I ain’t wanted in the bunk house”, he feels like an outsider. The racial discrimination from the 1930s in America highly affects him, “ they play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink. Well, I tell you, you all stink to me”, this quote shows that Crooks gets bitter because of loneliness. When Crooks scares Lennie about George not coming back, Crooks “face lighted with pleasure in his torture”, this quote demonstrates what George meant when he told Slim: “I seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain’t no good… they get mean”. Crooks cruelty is the result of the pain he has endured all his life because of his skin colour and because of loneliness. His physical description