In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, it portrays loneliness because it takes place against the backdrop of The Great Depression, and this affected the characters; Candy, Crooks, and Curley’s wife. The migrant workers never really stayed in one place long enough to have a permanent relationship with other people. Many of the characters admitted to suffering from loneliness that it affects the behaviors of the characters.
Crook is a black stable-hand. His name comes from the crooked background that he had when he was younger. In the story, Crooks admits that he is lonely. He tries to turn himself into a weapon to attack people who are weaker by using his words. Crooks plays a cruel game with Lennie, saying that George is gone for good when he went out. What Crooks wants most in this story is to have a sense of belonging, and to enjoy the right to play cards with the crew.
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Candy is an old handyman who is aging and he is left with one hand from an accident. Candy is worried that his boss will call him useless and tell him to leave the ranch. For a short while during the story, he dreams of living out the rest of his life with George and Lennie on their dream farm. Candy sticks to the idea of having freedom or to set aside work as he chooses to. Candy also owns an older dog. Later in the story, Carlson, another ranch-hand, gets Candy to agree to let him shoot his dog out of its misery.
In this novella, Steinbeck treats women as if they are all troublemakers. Curley’s wife, who walks around the ranch as a seductress towards men. Her purpose is very little in the beginning, but throughout the story, she becomes more of an important character. Curley’s wife is typically known as the tramp or tart around the ranch. She seduces men into going with her because Curley does not give her much attention. During the novel when she confronts Lennie, Crooks, and Candy in the stable, she admits to feeling a shameless dissatisfaction with her life.
Conclusion on Loneliness
In conclusion, Crooks, Candy, and Curley’s wife all share a feeling of loneliness throughout the story. Crooks just wishes that he could fit in with all the other guys at the ranch. He wants to be able to do the things that the guys get do at the ranch, and wants to be treated equally. Candy wants to go away with George and Lennie to their dream ranch where he can live out the rest of his life. Curley’s wife wants to be more appreciated and respected by Curley and all the other men at the ranch.
Booker T. Washington And The Reconstruction Period
In the late 19th century, at the end of the Reconstruction, the country was forced to face that the measures to reconstruct the country had failed, and more importantly, terror on Blacks in the South had become worse than ever. This had begun to be a time when Blacks were separated from Whites by Jim Crow laws, forced into debt by the sharecropping system, lynched daily, and painted as murderers, rapists, intellectually inferior, and all around immoral. Many white southerners were still angry after the civil war and resented blacks, they’re only goal was to keep the black race down, and used many different tactics such as the Ku Klux Klan’s reign of terror, literacy tests and intimidation to keep Blacks from voting, and harsh “Black Codes” that largely restricted Blacks.
Alternately, though Northern cities did not see a large Black population increases until 1915, there was still segregation, an increase in labor competition among urban poor intensified the conflict, and many help the belief that they were superior to the black race (Bufalino, lecture 3, slide 10). There was still no definite way on how to achieve racial equality. Though Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois made valiant efforts to lift their race, Washington’s approach was much more practical and attainable in the harsh realities of the United States. Booker T. Washington’s approach to future equality for the Black race was better fit for the historical conditions and attitudes, because his moderate approach allowed for increased White support, and slowly lifted up the entire class through industrial education that would lead them out of debt and achieve self-sufficiency.
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Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, two highly regarded Black men, rose up to take on the challenge of lifting the entire African-American race. Booker T. Washington was born a slave in Virginia in 1856, after emancipation he worked for his father on a coal mine and then pursued a secondary (industrial) education at the Hampton Institute, and eventually founded Tuskegee Institute, teaching industrial education (Harlan). On the other hand, W.E.B. DuBois was born free in 1868 in Massachusetts, educated at Fisk University and Harvard, and later became a teacher at Atlanta University (Hill).
Having been born a slave, Washington had a much better understanding of the harsh conditions of the South. He had the more moderate approach of the two, he believed in accommodation, industrial education, and self-help. He reasoned that blacks should accept discrimination for the time being and focus on bettering themselves and earning the respect of whites through patience and hard work. Alternatively, W.E.B. DuBois directly opposed accommodation, and instead demanded immediate citizenship and civil rights, including the right to a proper education, in order to achieve racial equality. Though Dubois’s demands were the optimal choice for the black race, Washington’s approach to achieving racial equality was much more realistic for the times.
