Of Mice and Men is more then just the tragedy of Lennie.
Uploaded by James Wang on Oct 17, 2003
The death of Lennie at the end of "Of Mice and Men' seems, at first, to be the most tragic event in the novel, especially for the people directly concerned, such as George and Lennie himself. However, in actual fact, the novel is full of sad people suffering in a world where no one really cares about them.
The men who worked on the ranches, the itinerant workers were sad and lonely people. As George says "Guys like us, who work on ranches, were the most lonely people in this world." They had no families and no homes. They moved from place to place to find work. Some had dreams of owning land, but only a few dreams came true. They tried to save up money, but spent every thing on Saturdays. They were back to nothing on Monday again. Most of the ranch hands were totally alone, they had no one to talk car of them. George and Lennie were different. They got each other, and they took cared to each other. Even though Lennie died, at least while he was alive, he had someone who cared about him.
For a while, Candy wasn't so lonely because he had his dog. He had his dog since it was a pup, they companied each other until Candy's dog was killed. Candy was old and disabled, he know if he couldn't work anymore, he would be sacked. He would be put on the county on his own. For a while, he had hope again. He could go with George and Lennie and live on their own farm, where there would be love and care. But when Curley's wife died, his dream was gone. He knew he was going to face the fact, where as soon as he couldn't out no bunkhouse, he would be put on the county on his own. Candy was a sad and old man whose life was made more tragic by the death of his old dog and Curley's wife.
Crooks too, was another lonely person. Unlike Candy, he was lonely because he was the only black person on the ranch. He was separated from everyone else on the ranch. He was sad and lonely as you can tell from his words with Lennie. "Maybe you can see now. You got George. You knew he was going to come back. Suppose you didn't have anybody. Suppose you were black. How...