Of Mice And Men Companionship Essay

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The usage of the literary element, characterization, in Of Mice and Men supports the overarching theme in the text. Using the character’s speech, Steinbeck indirectly characterizes Crooks as cruel and unfriendly to show the negative effects of a lack of companionship. In the text, Crooks is isolated from the rest as he resides in a room physically separated from the other’s, but continues to want a possibility in which he can have friends. His traits become apparent through his interactions with Lennie. Crooks’ traits are shown, for instance, when seeing an opportunity to cripple Lennie emotionally, he says, “‘Nobody can’t tell what a guy’ll do,’ he observed calmly. ‘Le’s say he wants to come back and can’t. S’pose he gets killed or hurt so…show more content…
Curly had purposefully isolated his wife by forcing her to live in a small house, spreading rumors of her causing trouble, and threatening those that interact with his wife in a jealous rage. From this, it is shown that Curly’s wife also struggles with the concept of companionship as she appears to lack it. Steinbeck does this purposefully to show another negative aspect of a lack of companionship in which it develops bad-natured behavior such as mocking and purposefully bullying others in a way that both Curly’s wife and Crooks have done. Both characters instead of pursuing a friendship with others, decide to continue to alienate themselves due to their little background knowledge of friendship. Both characters, because of a lack of companionship, maliciously react to those who do have friendship like George and Lennie. For that reason, the characterization of Crooks and Curly’s wife relates to the theme that people with companionship pursue their dreams and maintain positivity, because the two lonely characters are equipped with negative traits and habits that do not help them pursue their dreams of one day achieving friendship, but instead hurt those
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