Every person in the world has a dream, no matter how small, how large, or how smart you are, you have a dream. You have a wish that something about your current situation would be different. John Steinbeck uses dreams to affect the reader in his novel, Of Mice and Men. Set on a stunted ranch during The Great Depression, an unlikely pair travel from ranch to ranch searching for work. Lennie, a large but unwise man, and George, a small yet knowledgeable character.
In the 1930s with the Great Depression affecting millions of people in America, it was common to see immigrant’s working on agricultural labor. John Steinbeck, a great writer of the 20s, portrays the suffering of what an immigrant agricultural worker went through better than any other writer of the time. Publish in mid 1930s, Of Mice and Men tells the story of two immigrant workers, Lennie and George, and their experience of working in the fields of Salinas Valley of northern California. Throughout the novel Steinbeck vaguely tells the readers, through the protagonist Lennie and George, an unrealistic American Dream. It comes to the question of how far-fetched was George and Lennie’s American dream?
How Steinbeck foreshadows the unattainable dream for Lennie and George: In “Of Mice and Men”, Steinbeck explores the idea of the American Dream throughout the novel. The American Dream was the era in which many people, of different backgrounds, moved to America in the hopes of finding a better life. This time period lasted until the late 1920s. America had large amounts of fertile soil which offered many opportunities for becoming rich, as owning your own plot of land meant that you could make your own income and have a high financial status.
Of Mice and Men Dreams help motivate people to keep moving forward with a goal in their life. In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, George and Lennie travel together as migrant workers through California looking for a job. Their dream is to own their own ranch after finding a job that pays well. But impossible from the challenges that they gain along the way. The dreams in the novel affects the characters lives on how they feel towards one another, and themselves.
We see that all of these characters and their situations depict that a dream of an American is not always possible. Steinbeck shows that the unrealized dream was a major part of life in the 1930s and in the book Of Mice and
Unforeseen circumstances can create barriers to people's dreams. In Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck, several characters have dreams of being better than they currently are. Add a bit about the setting and about who George and Lennie are. George has a dream, where he will have a better life than he has now. Describe his life now, and also add what is going on in the story at this time.
In John Steinbeck’s classic novel, “Of Mice and Men”, the idea of the “American Dream” is a central theme throughout. This dream, as defined by the main characters, is to one day have enough land to live off of and to be their boss. Steinbeck explores the impossibility and power of this dream through the different experiences of George, Lennie, Candy, Crooks, and Curley’s wife. George, the novel’s protagonist, is the one who constantly speaks of the dream. To him, it’s a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak existence.
The book, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck was written in the time period of the Great Depression. In this novella, people go around working from ranch to ranch in hopes of having enough money to be able to get their American dream. George and Lennie travel together and end up on a ranch with other people who were doing the same work. As they are there they realize that their dream may be easier to get than they thought and begin to put their plans of a different future in action but Lennie, not being able to understand many things, accidentally kills a girl and takes off to his hiding spot. George decides that enough was enough and he needed to stop Lennie.
Dreams and goals shape human beings lives and make us who we are. In of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck, shares the dream that George, Lennie, and Candy all share. Dreams are what motivate us humans. They aren't just stories, they sometimes have a meaning. George, Lennie, and Candy all set a goal on how they want to get away from the ranch and live their lives in the future.
The initial paragraphs of John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men introduces Lennie and George, two men living on the road, in search of a job. Both men have dreams of their own and depend on each other in order to achieve them. George takes care of Lennie, who is mentally incapable, while Lennie provides company to George. These men wander around hoping to achieve the American Dream. They continue to go after it, without realizing that they will never be able to obtain it.
Since 1931 when James Truslow Adams first created the phrase “the American Dream”, people believed that America continuously offered everyone an equal opportunity to be successful. John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men, was set during the Great Depression. Farms were struck hard during the Depression, and the two main characters George and Lennie were farm hands during this time. They had experienced the misunderstandings of other farm hands in terms of Lennie’s mental disability, but they were trying to earn enough money to buy their own farm. The idea of this farm drove Lennie and George to keep working, and like many others during this time they hoped to achieve this dream.
Dreams can be very persuasive and uplifting as well as discouraging, in the right moments. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck introduces the readers to a story of dreams and how those dreams can affect you and others. Steinbeck explains through his novel how dreams can give reasons for people to succeed in life, how they can draw others in and encourage others or how dreams can stray away from reality and how the dreamer can get lost in their own fantasies and never accomplish their dreams at all. Dreams have the power to change lives by giving hope.
The characters in Of Mice and Men all have original and unique characteristics inside of them, but no matter how different, they all have the same reactions of giving up when thinking about dreams. The main characters George and Lennie, recently unemployed migrant workers, move to a new ranch for work. Thrown into a cruel, misshapen life that doesn’t end well for the majority of characters, George and Lennie find themselves in a dilemma that seems all too familiar. John Steinbeck uses the characters in Of Mice and Men to show that dreams are fragile and they need friends to support them.
Everyone aspires to achieve the American Dream: an opportunity to be successful by working hard. Throughout the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, the American Dream brings hope for a better life for those who hold onto it. George Milton and Lennie Smalls, traveling ranch workers called bindle stiffs, dream of owning their own piece of land where they create the rules. They are not the only characters with hopes and dreams. But Steinbeck shows the American Dream is, in fact, sometimes just a dream through the hopes and actions of Lennie, Candy, and Curley’s wife.
In conclusion, to express that the american dream is impossible Steinbeck used conversation, conflicts, and events. Throughout of mice and men George and Lennie got into many situations where they felt scared , worried, and angry. Together the plan was to get the money to live in a small place, tend to the rabbits and alpha so they are happy. But things happen such as George killing Lennie that make the american dream impossible to achieve.
