How do Hardy and Steinbeck portray loneliness in The Withered Arm :: English Literature

How do Hardy and Steinbeck portray loneliness in The shrivel Armand Of Mice and Men?Thomas Hardy, creator of The Withered Arm and John Steinbeck, authorof Of Mice and Men both portray the common theme of loneliness ineach of these novels. For example, in The Withered Arm, Rhoda isjudged for the cause of her loneliness, such as when it says She knewthat she had been slyly called a witch since her fall, as are Curleyand Curleys wife like when Candy refers to Curleys wife as a tart.Both show signs of discrimination be it due to race, call forth class ordisfigurement. Also, both mainly revolve around a friendship-Lennieand George in Of Mice and Men and Gertrude and Rhoda in TheWithered Arm.The Withered Arm alike conveys umteen other themes a lot of these arecommon to Of Mice and Men. Similarities in these themes include theunhappy marriages suffered which could also link into the lonelinesstheme. Curley and Curleys wife in Of Mice and Men have an unhappymarriage as do Farmer Lodge a nd Gertrude in The Withered Arm thoughin Of Mice and Men, neither try to resolve the situation whereas inThe Withered Arm, it is Gertrudes main stir to find a cure forher arm so that her husband will love her again. However, we know thatthis wont happen as there have been too many bad things happen foreverything to turn out happily. Of Mice and Men also shows strongsigns of this inevitability. We hear from George about the many micethat Lennie has killed and how things always go wrong due to the factthat he does not know his own strength. After crushing Curleys handand killing the puppy, we know that it is only a matter of time beforeLennie kills a person. We also know their American dream of owning aranch will not come true as, fairly near the beginning, George saysNuts showing that he did not believe in it from the start.The Withered Arm was set in Hardys home town of Dorset though hehas used fictional names for parts of Dorset such as Holmstoke,Casterbridge, Egdon Heath and Wess ex. This in itself is a rural, quiteisolated setting as is the ranch in Of Mice and Men which issituated near Soledad in California which is also theauthors-Steinbecks-home town. The isolation of these settings isused to show the isolation of the characters within them. Thistechnique of using the setting as a reference to other points of thestory is also used in the settings themselves.