Compare Of Mice And Men And American Dream

The Holocaust of the American Dream

For centuries people have been striving for the famous American Dream that many have achieved, but for every success story, there are hundreds of unheard disappointments. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is a novel that deals with the American Dream and its failure. The novel is set in the 1930’s in California. Lennie and George are the protagonists and they are migrant workers who travel from ranch to ranch in search of work. George is a quick, clever man who takes care of his good friend, Lennie, who is a large, strong man with a small brain and lack of common sense and memory. Lennie and George's American Dream is to own their own piece of land and live off it. Likewise, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

In Of Mice and Men, the one who meets death is Lennie. After Lennie accidentally kills Curley’s wife, the ranchmen set up a manhunt for him and plan to shoot Lennie. George, being Lennie’s only and closest friend, decides that it would be best for George himself to kill Lennie so he can die a peaceful death with a friend rather than a savage, terrifying death by the hands of strangers. “And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger” (Steinbeck 106). It is at this very moment that any last glimmer of hope for the American Dream dies. The American Dream dies along with Lennie and George is left with no will to dream another dream. The death of Lennie sets a clear example to all that American Dream is achievable. For Gatsby's death comes from an unexpected place. The day before Gatsby’s death he was in a car with Daisy, letting her drive his car when a woman named Myrtle ran out on the road and Daisy accidently ran her over and killed her. Myrtle ran into the road because she thought the one driving the car was Tom, her lover, and not Daisy. She believed this because Gatsby let Tom drive his car beforehand when he stopped at Myrtle’s husband, Wilson’s, garage for gas. Wilson, who was hellbent on revenge, thought Tom was driving the car as well, but when he came to Tom, Tom explained that it was Gatsby driving the car. Although it was actually Daisy driving the car, Gatsby kept that fact hidden because he still believed he loved her, and ultimately he had to pay the price for trying to protect a wicked woman; Gatsby was shot by Wilson as Gatsby was swimming in his pool. “like that ashen,