Homework for Class #20: Of Mice and Men

Shirley:

I think the loneliness is caused by the social imposed barriers and personal choice. Just like Curley’s wife, her loneliness is caused by both of the reasons, at first, her loneliness is caused by the sexual, she is a woman. So those workers don’t want to talk to her. She feels loneliness because she can’t talk to anybody about her feelings it makes her feel like she can’t breathe in the air. Very depressing. She feels loneliness because of the social imposed barriers, men always think they don’t need to talk to women. At last she choose not to try to talk to anyone, except Lennie, because she think he is kind, maybe he isn’t as bad as those workers. So her loneliness is caused by social imposed barriers and she turned it to her personal choice. But sometimes it just caused by personal choice or just caused by the social barrier. Curley’s wife is a unique person.

Lola:

Loneliness is a key point in this book. All the characters in this book stand on the point "loneliness". Although there were lots of people getting together, but the close distance couldn't covered the loneliness in the deep of everyone's heart. For instance, I think that Curley's wife was lonely. She was not alone as she married Curley but she wasn't respected by others just because she was a female, and she even didn't have a friend to talk with. So this kind of loneliness came from the society. The discrimination made them couldn't live a life which they want and destroyed the hope. But George's loneliness was complicated. When Lennie was still alive, George was not lonely because he had a person who could tell everything and didn't need to worry if he would tell others, although Lennie seemed to be a big trouble, it was still a good thing to keep him around. But at the same time he was also lonely because Lennie always caused him trouble and forgot or couldn't understand what he said, Lennie was so dull that George need to repeat every single word to him again and again. Nobody could understand how bad George's life was, so he was lonely. In the end, George had no way but to shot Lennie by himself so that Lennie wouldn't be treated badly by Curley. The book didn't tell what happened after, but I could imagine that George lost a friend who truly like him forever, and George's following life might be full of loneliness.