ipl-logo

Comparing The American Dream In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

664 Words3 Pages

The American Dream
The Webster dictionary defines the word dream as “A succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations”. Many people have different perspectives about dreams. In John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie set out to achieve their dream of owning a ranch while demonstrating the importance of friendship/companionship, while explaining the power of dreams and the impact they have. Steinbeck has shown throughout the story the bond of friendship is a double-edged sword, because while it can strengthen relationships it can also weaken and destroy them. Steinbeck shows this in the story when George ends Lennie’s life because he looked out for him.
John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men portrays a life of two migrant workers Lennie Small and George Milton. They have been best friends. George is characterized as a shorter man with a dark face while Lennie is almost the opposite with a large face and a large body, …show more content…

One warm day when all of the ranch workers were playing horseshoes Curley’s wife came into the barn and started to talk Lennie. Lennie tried refusing to talk to her because of what George had told him, but she started talking about her hair and mentioned that her hair was soft, so Lennie was asking her if he could touch her hair and she allowed him to. Suddenly, she got frightened by Lennie. She struggled so she started to scream but Lennie prevented her so no one could hear her. Lennie had then broken her neck and she was dead. And soon George learned that Lennie would be better off not to live because he knew he could get into more trouble,George found lennie wondering in the woods so he went up to him and started talking to him "George raised his gun and his hand shook, and he dropped his hand to the ground again" (105). George had killed Lennie

Show More
Related
548 Words | 3 Pages

“George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head… He pulled the trigger” (Steinbeck 106). George ended up killing Lennie in fear of what was to happen to him in Of Mice and Men by George Steinbeck. George and Lennie are two migrant workers, and best friends, travelling looking for a job. They wind up at a farm where they have to deal with the boss’s son, Curley.

Read More
841 Words | 4 Pages

Lennie and George lead a very hard lifestyle, and Lennie would always get them in trouble, so to help Lennie, George shot him. What George did

Read More
669 Words | 3 Pages

After Lennie accidentally killed Curley’s wife, he ran away from the ranch. The other men learned of Lennie’s murder and pursued him. George, who was Lennie’s friend, found him first. There, he “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.

Read More
880 Words | 4 Pages

George finds Lennie and with his gun, contemplates on killing him. 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” (Steinbeck 104). As George does not know if he is making the right decision, there is a heavy atmosphere to this scene. With George about to end a life, it demonstrates how cruel humans can be.

Read More
811 Words | 4 Pages

George had to shoot Lennie in order to protect others from lennie 's misjudgements and to save himself from

Read More
1283 Words | 6 Pages

George told him that if he got in trouble go to the river up the road and hide in the brush so he did, when George and the men found the body they went searching for him. George knew where he was, he finally found him hiding in the brush where he told him. Lennie asked George to tell him “’Bout the others guys an’ about us.” As George told Lennie about the way their life was going to be he shot Lennie in the back of the head. So George is disillusioned with Lennie and what is really best for

Read More
632 Words | 3 Pages

George was disgusted by the fact that he had to kill his best friend, but he knew that it was the only way Lennie could achieve happiness and not get tortured. Because of this, George knew that he had just gave up his dream for Lennie in an act of

Read More
464 Words | 2 Pages

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?

Read More
828 Words | 4 Pages

In the end, George went to find Lennie and killed him because he didn’t want him to be lynched by Curley and other ranch hands. George felt it would be better if Lennie died without knowing. However, after he killed Lennie, he waited for other people to come, and he told a totally different story. “But Carlson was standing over George. ‘How’d you do it?’he asked.

Read More
764 Words | 4 Pages

George runs away and finds Lennie, telling him that it wasn’t his fault that Curley’s wife died. George begins to tell Lennie the story of the farm they will have together, and as he describes the farm they will have, George shoots Lennie in the back of the head. When the other men find George and Lennie, George tells the men that Lennie had the gun, and that he took it from him and

Read More
617 Words | 3 Pages

Have you ever had a friend that just became someone you used to know? The American Dream has been a great motivator for many people. In the book of “Mice and Men,”Lennie and George's dream keeps them going while at the same time, George is forced to make the biggest decision of his friendship. George is like a father like brother too Lennie. George was a friend to Lennie and a mentor for Lennie after Lennie’s Aunt Clara died.

Read More
679 Words | 3 Pages

Lennie was putting his hand on Curley’s wife’s when she screamed and cried for help, “ Now don’t, he said. I dont want you to yell. You gonna get me in trouble jus’ like George says you will. Now don’t you do that. And she countinued to struggle, and her eyes were wild with terror.

Read More
1466 Words | 6 Pages

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.

Read More
290 Words | 2 Pages

“For many, the American Dream has become a nightmare,” these all too real words from Bernie Sanders reflect negatively upon the idea of the American Dream. While this quote is about modern-day America, the same idea was used in the story Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. There are numerous points in the story where this idea is stated. Steinbeck promotes the negatives of the American dream heavily in his story Of Mice and Men. There are various points where Steinbeck uses his character's dialogue and actions to show the impossible truth of the American Dream.

Read More
404 Words | 2 Pages

One warm day when all of the ranch workers were playing horseshoes curley’s wife came into the barn and started to talk lennie. Lennie

Read More

More about Comparing The American Dream In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Related Topics

Open Document