OMAM 3 Main Themes
Lonliness
Dreams
Companionship
"I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely." -Curley's wife
"… I ain’t wanted in the bunk house, and you ain’t wanted in my room." - Crooks
Loneliness is mostly portrayed through Candy, Crooks and Curley's wife.
The theme is explored through the contrast of George and Lennie's friendship with the loneliness of the other characters.
Dreams are explored through George and Lennie's dream
Curley's wife failed dream
Lennie’s death makes his and George’s dream impossible so as the novel ends, we see that even simple, modest dreams are unattainable in the harsh environment of America during the Great Depression.
The loneliest characters are Candy, Crooks, Curley's wife
Lennie & George stand out from the rest of the characters because they have each other when other ranch workers have no one. This makes their boss suspicious of them.
Companionship is explored through the way lonely characters crave friendship
"Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place... With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us."
"I said what stake you got in this guy? You takin' his pay away from him?"
"Np, 'course I ain't. Why ya think I'm sellin' him out?"
"Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is."
"George can tell you screwy things, and it don’t matter. It’s just the talking. It’s just bein’ with another guy. That’s all." -Crooks
"George can tell you screwy things, and it don’t matter. It’s just the talking. It’s just bein’ with another guy. That’s all."
They have a land to purchase
They have an idea planted in their head with everything they'll have
"All kin’s a vegetables in the garden, and if we want a little whisky we can sell a few eggs or something, or some milk. We’d jus’ live there. We’d belong there. There wouldn’t be no more runnin’ round the country and gettin’ fed by a Jap cook. No, sir, we’d have our own place where we belonged and not sleep in no bunk house." Their dream is having a simple life.
"You seen what they done to my dog tonight? They says he wasn’t no good to himself nor nobody else. When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me. But they won’t do nothing like that. I won’t have no place to go, an’ I can’t get no more jobs." - Candy
Both Candy and Crooks ask to be involved in George and Lennie’s dream as a way of trying to escape from the isolation of their difficult lives on the ranch.
"...If you... guys would want a hand to work for nothing—just his keep, why I’d come an’ lend a hand. I ain’t so crippled I can’t work like a son-of-a-bitch if I want to." -Crooks
Curley's wife had hopes and dreams, She only married Curly when her plans failed.
"I tell you I ain’t used to livin’ like this. I coulda made somethin’ of myself.” She said darkly, “Maybe I will yet.” And then her words tumbled out in a passion of communication, as though she hurried before her listener could be taken away. “I lived right in Salinas,” she said. “Come there when I was a kid. Well, a show come through, an’ I met one of the actors. He says I could go with that show. But my ol’ lady wouldn’ let me. She says because I was on’y fifteen. But the guy says I coulda. If I’d went, I wouldn’t be livin’ like this, you bet."
All the dreams are similar in that the characters rely on them as a way of coping with the difficulties in their lives.