This novel is set in the 1930s, on a ranch in the Salinas Valley. The center of concentration are two men, George and Lennie, dreaming ranchhands fleeing from a fiasco in Weed. Although they are close companions, this relationship seems to be the only in the novel to truly thrive. Other characters are marked by loneliness, such as Crooks, because of his race, and Curley's wife, so set apart that she isn't even given a name. Even Slim, the Lancelot of the ranch, comments, "Ain't many guys travel around together...Maybe ever'body in the whole damn world is scared of each other" (55).
George and Lennie are percieved as an odd pair on the ranch due to their companionship. Although Lennie is mentally handicapped, George looks after him as if he were family. He constantly insists that he'd be better off if Lennie were to disappear, but in severe times, he shows his true need for his bear-like friend, "I want you to stay with me, Lennie. Jesus Christ, somebody'd shoot you for a coyote if you was by yourself. No, you stay with me" (13). Together the two own a dream of land to call their own, complete with rabbits and chickens and alfalfa, which George is constantly repeating to Lennie, often in monotone from so many times said. He enjoys it more than he shows though; it installs him with a renewed love of the dream each time the words pass his lips, as if he believes that repeating the stories will bring them to reality somehow.
The only interruption to their dream is one that they cannot see. The character of Curley's wife is commonly seen as a tramp, as she is always tempting the men of the ranch. Behind her promiscuous exterior, however, lies an isolated young woman in search of recognition. She does have a husband, but he isn't capable of satiating her thirst for love, as well as the fact that he symbolizes the loss of her dreams of fame. She's lost those possibilities, so she now seeks the attention of the ranchhands. As she constantly says, "Think I don't like to talk to somebody ever' once in a while? Think I like to stick in that house alla time" (77)?
It is through a common rejection that Lennie and Curley's wife are brought together. As Lennie mourns over the death of his puppy in the barn, Curley's wife discovers him and attempts conversation, despite Lennie's persistence against it. After much coaxing she persuades him to stroke her hair, which he doesn't want to release once he does, and, as a result, she is found in a pile of hay with a broken neck. It seems odd that she would pursue Lennie after learning of his strength, but her thirst for love and attention is so great that she's blinded to these facts by his convenience. She cares little about his and George's dream, and it also doesn't bother her that Lennie responds to every word of hers with talk of rabbits. The chance to speak her dreams aloud is enough for her. Because of her careless and selfish acts, though, George is fated to kill Lennie for her murder, as well as the dream.
Each inhabitant of the ranch owns their own form of isolation. From craving relief from an ill-fated marriage to mourning the loss of a life-long companion, each suffers a wound of loneliness, regardless of how they attempt to nurse that wound. Lennie and George seemed the only true companions, but in the end, loneliness touched them as well.
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