Dreams In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck tells the story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two best friends working on a ranch during the Great Depression. The overshadowing idea during the novel is the idea of dreams. Many of the characters’ dreams and plans fail, leaving them with sadness. Some of these characters include Curly’s wife, Lennie Small, and George Milton. Curly’s wife, Lennie, and George are characters who dream big, but ultimately do not achieve their dreams. Curly’s wife dreams of becoming a movie star. When she was a teenager, a show came through her town, and one of the actors offered for her to join them. Her mother said that she was too young. Later in her life, she met a man who said that she was a natural actress and he would write a letter to her about getting a start in Hollywood. She never received the letter and suspected that her mother stole. Since she wanted to get away from her

Since Lennie has a bad memory and forgets things, he often asks George to describe the fictional farm to him. One example of George internally struggling with how to deal with Lennie comes at the beginning of Of Mice and Men. He goes on a rant saying, “if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an’ work, an’ no trouble. . .An’ whatta I got . . . I got you! You can’t keep a job and you lose me ever’ job I get” (Steinbeck 11; ch. 1). Later in the novel, George is telling Lennie about a detailed version of the farm and the animals. When another worker on the ranch named Candy mentions that he knows of a patch of land that could be used for the farm, George quickly starts planning how they will save up the money to buy it (Steinbeck 59-61; ch. 3). This shows that George badly wants this dream to become a reality. George’s dream of living on his own farm with Lennie is in conflict with his own difficulties of taking care of