How does Steinbeck show disadvantaged characters in the novel Of Mice and Men?

Steinbeck wrote of Lennie
Small:

Lennie
was not to represent insanity at all but the inarticulate and powerful yearning of all
men.

Certainly, the title of
Steinbeck's great novella frames the narrative of the failed yearnings of all
Steinbeck's characters who are disadvantaged economically, socially, racially, and
mentally. Each of the characters of George Small, Curley, Candy, Crooks, and Lennie are
deprived of the basic needs of man while their "well-laid schemes go
awry."

Alienated from their homes, the itinerant workers
who seek jobs wherever they can find them are alone and vulnerable.  In their
vulnerability they become mean, as George says.  For, aggression is spawned by
weakness and vulnerability as demonstrated by Curley.  Even Crooks, who has been
ostracized from the others is cruel to Lennie when he enters the barn.  And, Curley's
wife exhibits this aggressive attitude when Crooks tries to deter her from entering the
barn as she threatens,

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You know what I can do to you if you open your
trap?...I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even
funny.

Coinciding with the
meanness of the disadvantaged as they seek to protect themselves, is a great distrust of
one another.  When George and Lennie arrive, George is distrustful of the cleanliness of
the bunkhouse, then he is wary of Candy's motives for talking to him. In addition, he
feels an immediate antipathy for Curley with his appearance in the doorway;
George cautions Lennie to stay away from him and not talk to him. George also views
Curley's wife as "jail bait" as well as Candy, who is always suspicious of her motives
for coming around the bunkhouse.  After the others learn of the death of Curley's wife,
it is a distrust of the man who has killed her that creates their frenzied
search.

The disadvantaged characters of Of Mice
and Men are chiefly deprived of the essential needs of man:  love, security,
and fraternity. Because of this deprivation they become aggressive, cruel, and uncertain
of life, holding desperately to shallow dreams that give them some hope in their lonely
world.