1. Friendship and Loneliness By Shannon, Terri, Alfie, Lisa & Siobhan

2. Lennie Lennie is lonely because he can’t always understand what’s going on around him. Crooks says to Lennie “sometimes he talks, and you don’t know what the hell he’s talkin’ about. Aint that so?”. When he is actually alone he finds it harder to control himself, for example, Lennie could not let go of Curley’s Wife’s hair when she started screaming. He can’t act/think properly under pressure, which means that he needs to have force applied to him to become normal again. For example, George has to hit him over the head with a fence post in Weed to get him to let go. Lennie has a strong relationship with George that everyone is curious about because it is not often that you see two men travel together.

3. George George is lonely because he cannot have a mature conversation with Lennie because Lennie is very childlike. You can see how much he wants one because he is keen to talk to Slim when Slim starts asking him questions in chapter 3. He also gets lonely after he shoots Lennie as his best mate and partner that he had planned so much with had died. You imagine that he won’t now go on and get the ranch because he wanted to do it with Lennie.

4. Candy Candy is lonely because he doesn’t travel with anyone and he has one hand so he can’t do most jobs so he can’t work with anyone else. He has a minuscule chance at living the dream as he can hardly work. He only has his dog in his life and even that ends up getting shot so that makes him absolutely by himself.

5. Crooks Crooks is lonely because he has no-one to talk to. He explains to Lennie that because he is black he is pushed aside “this is just a nigger talkin’, an’ a busted-back nigger. So it don’t mean nothing, see?”. This suggests that Crooks would like to have someone to talk to even if they don’t listen to him fully, “I seen it over an’ over- a guy talkin’ to another guy and it don’t make no difference if he don’t hear or understand”. Crooks would like to be spoken to more and included in the men's games, but he mainly wants power, for example, when he said to Lennie that George wouldn’t come back that evening it says after his speech that “Crooks pressed forward some kind of private victory” suggesting that he needs to gain power in order to salvage any pride that he has.

6. How does the background to the novel link with this theme? The background to the novel links with the theme because Lennie and George have been together for so long “Him and me was both born in auburn. I knowed his aunt Clara. She took him when he was a baby and raised him up. When his aunt Clara died Lennie just come along with me out workin’.”. They are both different so George feels alone because he can’t have a mature conversation with anyone, and Lennie is very childlike and doesn’t have anyone in the world other than George, “guys like us got no fambly. They make a little stake an’ then they blow it in. they aint got nobody in the worl’ that gives a hoot in hell about ‘em” But because they have been together for so long they can’t imagine being apart.

7. What point do you think Steinbeck was trying to make by including these themes? Steinbeck was trying to make a statement that life was hard back then in the late 1930’s. Everyone’s dream was to find a better life in America, but individuals had their own extensions to that dream. George and Lennie’s dream was to own their own ranch and survive off the “fatta the lan’ ”. Having a dream gave you hope – and hope was important as it kept you going during the lonely times. In the late 1930’s there was very little work around and families and individuals had to travel to find work which meant they were very lonely. Unlike Lennie and George not many men travelled around together, “Hardly none of the guys ever travel together, I hardly never seen two guys travel together. You know how the hands are, they just come in and get their bunk and work a month, and then they quit and go out alone.”. Friendships were very rare.

8. Friendship George and Lennie have a strong friendship they have been together for years. Lennie looks up to George and George looks after Lennie. Lennie is like a little child and he tries to make friends with Crooks and he doesn’t understand why Crooks is left out and he tries to make friends with everyone. Lennie says ‘Nothing I just seen your light. I thought I could just come and sit’. Candy and his dog have been friends since the dog was a pup and the term a man’s best friend fits with this situation because Candy’s dog was his partner he followed him everywhere and even worked with him so he wasn’t on his own ‘I’m so used to him’ he said softly ‘I had him from a pup’.

9. Friendship George opens up to Slim as he wants to have a sensible grown- up conversation and then Slim offers George friendship and trust. How does the context of the novel link with this theme? The context of the novel links with this theme because at the time people where travelling around for work and at the time for two men to be travelling around together was unusual. What point do you think Steinbeck was trying to make by including this theme? Steinbeck includes this theme to show that in bad times, people stayed together and that friendships could survive as they travelled.