Isolation In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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Isolation is being separated from others or being alone not by choice but by other people of a certain group. Isolation is shown all throughout this short novella. Although the world may seem of happy faces and places to go and go see, there are many people in this world that are alone and have no family or anything of the sort. In Of Mice and Men isolation is shown with Crooks being separated from the other men, Curley’s Wife being the only female, and Curley being unable to accept that he’s smaller than the other men. Crooks is the only African-American mentioned in Steinbeck’s novella. “‘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, all of you stink to me”(Steinbeck 68).This quote gives a tastes of how black people were treated in 1619. They were treated as trash and kept away from civilization. As if something was wrong with them and that they weren’t human to no means. Crooks shows us isolation in more than two ways, he is separated from everyone on the farm, has a spinal injury, and of course the big obvious one that he’s black. He’s…show more content…
They feel helpless and have more to prove throughout life. They have to work a little harder to prove their worth and equality to others. Curley’s like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys. He’s alla time picking scraps with big guys. Kind of like he’s mad at ‘em because he ain’t a big guy” (Steinbeck 14). Throughout the novella I imagine Curley in his little high worker boots walking around trying to fit in. I see him beating up on bigger guys because they're not like him. I also see this scrawny little “kid” trying to be tough with the other men. I think this quote makes Curley feel isolated, because he’s angry at the fact that he has to go the extra mile just to fit in. This is important to me because it shows how everyone in the world, all over, aren't the same and that it’s this way for a
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