‘A few miles south of Soledad…’. Soledad. Solitude. Within the first page of John Steinbeck’s novel, ‘Of Mice and Men’, Steinbeck’s main theme, isolation, is subliminally made clear; Soledad translating directly from Spanish as ‘solitude’. Here, Steinbeck has used foreshadowing as a method to demonstrate the theme, essentially setting the whole book a few miles away from ‘Loneliness’.
‘An’ he ain’t no good to him self.’ Throughout the book foreshadowing becomes evident, in this case Carlson talking about Candy’s dog. His comment towards Candy’s dog links to Lennie’s death; people’s opinion being that once something is nolonger useful, it has no value. The dog is subsequently shot, as is Lennie (foreshadowing evident). Companionship is overlooked, In addition to the gold mine of information this quote gives us, it shows the negativity displayed by the characters, repetition of the word ‘no’.
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