Of Mice and Men was written by John Steinbeck in 1937. It is a short post-depression novel that tackles issues and themes based around the working class people/labourers at that particular time. It also explorers their lives, their hardships and their struggles through life, and occasionally delves into the more positive points (although there are few and far between). Steinbeck prompts an awareness of society from the reader, and he uses specific writing techniques in the novel such as conflict and point of view to bring these issues/themes across to the reader.
Steinbeck uses the language in the narrative to propose themes such as loneliness. The author repeats the fact that most men travel around by themselves, and are therefore lonely. When Lennie asks George to tell him the story of "how it's gonna be," George always starts off by saying "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world," (p 15). This shows the reader how it was back in the 1930s-40s in the Great Depression. By the use of repetition, the reader is manipulated to believe what they are reading - that loneliness was a major part of the Great Depression.
A significant part of the text is devoted to Crooks and his life in the shed. Steinbeck uses the point of view to his advantage by showing us how lonely Crooks is by himself. When the novel tells the reader that "It was difficult for Crooks to conceal his pleasure with anger" (p74), due to Crooks inviting Candy into his shed, the theme of loneliness is once again reinforced, as Crooks didn't get many visitors to his shed, mainly because of his skin colour. .
Steinbeck uses imagery of Hollywood and the glamour of fame & fortune, and descriptive language, to give the reader an indication of the loneliness of Curley's wife. Imagery is also used to show that she is better of dead than alive on the ranch. Curley's wife uses descriptive language whilst re-telling her story and this language creates an image of how lonely Curley's wife actually is on the ranch in the middle of nowhere without any other women and no one to talk to, and what she could have become is she hadn't married Curley.
