The Tragedy of Isolation Exposed in John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men :: Steinbeck Of Mice and Men Essays

The Tragedy of Isolation Exposed in Of Mice and Men The heavy(p) Depression of the 1930s was a tumultuous time. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes and means of unemployment. all told families would roam the country, desperate for food and a place to rest, struggling to survive. at that place were also many men who tramped across America alone, searching for lowly conjectures to keep them alive a nonher month. John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men details the lives of several(prenominal) such men and shows that the principle quest of so many was not money or things that money can buy. Rather, whether they were travelling from one job to another or employed in some capacity, the vast bulk of the wandering laborers were searching for human club and reassurance that they were not alone to suffer for themselves- something very few of them actually found. It was not merely the migrant workers who matt-up detached form the world- even the bosss password Curley was manifest ly desperate for unfeigned companionship. Curleys biggest obstacle was himself, as he possessed simultaneously an enormous self and very little self-esteem. As the son of the owner of a bombastic cattle farm, Curley had considerable berth over the men who worked there, and he chose to abuse that power rather that try to befriend those who were beneath him. Unable to realize that incessantly filling fights would do little to combat his loneliness, Curley pounced upon everyone who looked at him funny as an excuse to vent his frustration at being friendless and hated. He could not love his wife because that would mean breaking down the prohibition of pride he had constructed, and so he perpetuated the cycle of loneliness two in himself and others. And what of Curleys wife? Nameless, she epitomizes the wife displayed as a trophy by a status-conscious husband, whether he is a prominent politician, a millionaire, or the son of a ranch owner. It is tragic that two individuals so alone in the world could be thrown together by fate and adopt only in strengthening each others isolation, and that is often the case. Curley lived his life picking fights or discussing future ones, while his wife, desperate for meaningful attention, flirts with all the ranch hands. She sought out Lennie and the others in Crookss room for conversation in desperation, hoping for companionship yet dooming it from the start by her arrogance and unwillingness to concede that, to be truly happy, she must bend a little.