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Loneliness In Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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From of John Donne’s most popular poems states, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…”. One of the many themes in Of Mice and Men that still relates to society today is that at some point everyone has felt isolated or lonely. The theme of loneliness and isolation is most noticeably present in Candy, Crooks, and Curley's wife.

For example, sometimes people find themselves feeling lonesome and excluded from a group because of their minority status. Crooks was lonely because, he was always ostracized from the ranchworks because he was African-American. “ A guy needs somebody-to be near him,” he whined. A guy goes nuts if he aint got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the the guy is, long’s he’s with you. I tell ya,” he cried, “I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick,” (Steinbeck 72). Last year the National Review wrote an article about how college students were feeling isolated at school because of their race. One Muslim student, said that they felt marginalized, left out, and disregarded in class and on campus by virtue of their minority status(Torres 2). Today, there are laws against discrimination yet, people are still …show more content…
When all the ranchworks went into town; Candy was left at the ranch because he was old and disabled without an arm. Candy wants to go out with the other ranchworks, but he bodily can’t. The closest thing Candy had to not being alone was his dog, but when his dog was killed so was a part of Candy. Social isolation due to disability is not a new issue for many people with disabilities . Close to 20 percent of people with disabilities have not had any social contact over the last three months. One reason many people with disabilities are less socially active is because of a physical reason (Piotrowski). People with disabilities aren’t lonely because they don’t chose to stay isolated but because

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