Of+Mice+and+Men





"It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dog." - Eric Hoffer. The novel __Of Mice and Men__ by __John Steinbeck__ proves this to be true. Crooks, Candy, and Curley's wife, all suffer from loneliness and neglect, but each of them have a certain way of displaying

Crooks, the only colored man on the ranch had a small room all to himself; no one ever came into his room. “Cause I'm black. They play cards in there, but I can't play because I'm black. They say I stink. Well I tell you, you all of you stink to me" (Steinbeck 68). This quote from the book proves this to be true. However, Lennie was one of the only people that ever came into his room. Crooks was excited, but tried not to show it. "Come on in and set a while' Crooks said. ‘Long as you won't get out and leave me alone, you might as well set down" (Steinbeck 68). In this scene, Crooks tells Lennie to make himself comfortable, but doesn't tell him it's because he wants him to. His excuse to let him stay is that he refuses to get out, but then shows that it was because he got lonely when he said, "A guy goes nuts is he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is long's he's with you. I tell ya" (Steinbeck 72).It proves Crooks gets lonely in a room by himself and wishes he had someone to express himself to. In addition to Crooks, Candy the old man felt lonely to, "…I won't have no place to go, an' I can't get no more jobs" (Steinbeck 60). This shows Candy is lonely because he says once he is fired he won't have any place, he has no friends or family to go to, he is alone. He can't rely on anyone to help him.

Curley's wife, the only female on the farm proves to be lonely in many occasions as well. For example, she says "Why can't I talk to you? I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely" (Steinbeck 86). This shows she wants to talk to people because she can never talk to anyone but her husband and she gets lonely when he's not there.

In conclusion, several people at the ranch got lonely, Candy, Crooks, and Curley's wife. They prove Eric Hoffer's quote "It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This true to men as of dog." because they are all lonely and "make noise" by trying to talk to people to fill their emptiness.