George And Lennie's American Dream

The American Dream is a concept in which an opportunity for success and prosperity can be achieved through hard work in a society with very few barriers standing in their way; a dream to live a rich, fruitful and luxurious lifestyle that could only be achieved in a country such as America where all your dreams could be made into a reality, to live in big houses and drive fancy cars and never having to worry about not having money ever again.
In “Of Mice and Men” I understand the ‘American Dream’ in the context of this novel to be George and Lennie’s fragile dream to one day own a ranch of their own. That one day on their very own ranch will have a large vegetable patch, cows, pigs, chickens and of course rabbits that Lennie will tend to. That

“We’ll have trouble keepin’ him from getting right in the box with them pups’.” This quote is symbolic because George and Slim were discussing how much the puppy means to Lennie and how Lennie is infatuated with the puppy and in chapter five Lennie’s strength is evident as he accidently kills the puppy. The death of the mice foreshadowed the death of the puppy. “He made like he’s gonna bite me…an’ I made like I was gonna smack him…an’…an’ I done it. An’ then he was dead.” When Lennie kills the puppy he destroys his window of escape from the bunk house which could take a toll on his childlike need to get out and play. A gentle, little smack from Lennie toward the puppy was enough to kill the puppy. A similar example of foreshadowing is shown when Lennie kills the mice. By furthering Lennie’s introduction in this light we see Lennie as the unintentional killer. The death of the puppy foreshadows yet another

“He shook her; and her body flopped like a fish. And then she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck.” Based on Lennie’s childlike manner he panicked and was physically unable to let go of Curley’s wife’s hair. It’s almost like he was holding onto the only thing that made him feel safe in the environment that he was in at the time. Based on her screaming for help she threatened George and Lennie’s relationship as George would be angry with Lennie for what he was doing and they’d have to leave the current ranch their working on. Therefore he covered her mouth and thus led to her neck being snapped. At the beginning of the book Lennie did something similar to another girl, he wouldn’t let go of her dress, luckily George was there to stop him and help him let go of the dress unlike in this situation George wasn’t there to make him let go of Curley’s wife. Resulting in him accidentally killing her. The previous incident similar to this one foreshadowed the incident and death of Curley’s wife. By Steinbeck using foreshadowing throughout the book he’s slowly showing the crushing of this fragile dream that George and Lennie