Of Mice and Men Essay

Submitted By Melissa-Silva
Words: 592
Pages: 3

Amelia Earhart once said, “The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship”. By this she means that one must be able to recognize important essentials such as having companionship. Steinbeck uses the theme of affiliation being a necessity to achieve happiness in “Of Mice and Men” through the characters Crooks and Curley’s wife. Crooks is a very lonely man who shows the theme of needing friendship to have a pessimistic perspective. During the solitary moments that Crooks has, he picks up on how to read. This is impressive since Crooks is a black man and the rest of the guys are white. He spends a great deal of his time reading too since the rest of the guys on the ranch isolate him because of his skin color. Soon enough, Crooks can not take the abandonment feeling anymore and expresses his opinion to the only one willing to listen which is Lennie. ”A guy needs somebody, to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick.” (73). The reader can infer that all crooks wants and needs is a buddy like everyone else. As long as a person has another person in their life, they should feel belongingness.
Curley's wife is married, yet she still feels that she has no one in her life that truly cares about her. The guys on the ranch refer to Curley's wife as a tart since she gives all the men the eye. The reason that Curley's wife is genuine and sincere to the men is because she thinks that Curley is making it an obligation for her to only talk to him. Curley's wife explains this to Lennie when they are alone. ”I get lonely. You can talk to people, but I can't talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad. How'd you like not to talk to anybody?” (87). By this quotation, the reader can infer that Curley's wife is not satisfied with the relationship she holds with Curley. Sometimes a person may have a partner, but it