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loneliness - Coggle Diagram
loneliness
Candy
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the other men, all loners and migrant workers, cannot understand the idea of friendship and simply want the dog shot because it is no longer useful and is a nuisance in the bunkhouse
they do not recognise, nor sympathise with Candy's affection for the dog as e pleads with them to let the subject drop, ' I'm so used to him' and 'he was the best damn sheepdog I ever seen'
he offers his money to George and Lennie top buy the property because 'I ain't got no relatives nor nothing'
he knows that his future is more loneliness and then death 'they'll can me purty soon ... I won't have no place to go to
when crooks sneers at the idea of owning their own place, his answer shows the comfort he gains from his new friends and the end to loneliness 'we gonna do it ... Me and Lennie and George'
the importance of friendship and self-esteem it now gives to him is also shown in the way that he answers back to Curley's wife when she insults him and Crooks and Lennie 'we got fren's, that's what we got '
Seeing the collapse of his dreams, he takes out his anger on Curley's wife's corpse. 'you wasn't no good ... I could of hoed the garden and washed dishes for them guys' but now there is only his lonely old aged existence on the ranch
Curley's wife
In the first meeting, Steinbeck stresses how incongruous her clothes and appearance are with her 'full rouged lips', 'heavily mad up' eyes, 'red ostrich feathers'. She is immediately isolated, partly by being the only female here and also by being the sort of woman who would not easily fit in on a hard-working ranch. Steinbeck makes her seem more friendless and remote by never giving her a name
this is the first of several visits to the bunkhouse, always claiming that she is looking for Curley but clearly she is looking for company
the men know that, as Curley's wife, she is too dangerous to befriend and so they are never chatty, and just want her to leave. George has to teach this to Lennie telling him to 'leave her be'
On Saturday night, she wanders in to the barn where there is a gathering of these excluded from going into town. Though she knows Curley has gone to the cat-house she asks if he is here: clearly, she is lonely
She announces her isolation to these men, 'think I don't like to talk to somebody ever' once in a while ? Think I like to stick in that house alla time?
she lashes out viciously because they do not want to talk to them, calling them 'a bunch of bindle stiffs' and claiming that she is only here because 'they ain't nobody else'
in the barn she pleads with Lennie 'I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely'. She is, perhaps more friendless than anyone else
As she realises that she can talk to Lennie, she confides that she only married Curley to get away from home. the dream world that she lives in, the belief that she could have been a film star only isolates her further; her real world is lonely and miserable whilst her dream is unattainable.
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George and Lennis
Different from the other ranch hands, 'we got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us' because they have each other
George enjoys the dream of two friends owning land together as much as Lennie 'An if a fren' come along ... we'd say "Why don't you spen' the night?"'
George tells Slim, " I seen the guys that go around the ranches alone. That ain't no good", revealing that he benefits by avoiding their loneliness. He says that he and Lennie 'got kinda used to each other' and ' its's nicer to go around with a guy you know'
George tells Slim how he once used Lennie for fun but he learned his lesson after and incident in the river and 'I ain't done nothing like that no more'. He protects and defends Lennie, e.g not allowing Slim to call him 'cuckoo', proudly telling the boss that he can 'put up more grain alone than most pairs can' and not allowing Curley to beat him up
Lennie, despite being slow and easily confused, is sure of this friendship, answering Crook's threat that George might abandon him, 'George wouldn't do nothing like that'
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When he kills Lennie, George makes sure that he dies happy, Lennie's last words being 'Le's get that place now' as George pulls the trigger behind his head
Crooks
he is segregated in the barn, demonstrating racial discrimination of the 1930s
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excluded from the companionship that exists in the bunkhouse. When he talks to Slim about the mule's foot he doesn't enter - 'the stable buck put in his head'
at the beginning of chapter 4, we see where and how he lives, his possessions including books as he reads instead of having company
'Crooks was a proud, aloof man' because he had no choice but to endure this prejudice and isolation. Consequently, he bitterly guards his enforced privacy, saying to Lennie 'This here's my room ... I ain't wanted in the bunkhouse and you ain't wanted in my room'
he is regretting the way that he taunted Lennie. ' A guy needs somebody - to be near him' and 'a guy gets too lonely' and 'a guy sets alone out here at night