Futility In Of Mice And Men

Steinbeck uses dreams of mice and men to show the characters desires and to comment on the American dream in the 1930s. The theme of dreams was initially shown in the title, the title “Of Mice and Men” is an inter textual link to a poem by Robert Burns where a mouse who had spent ages setting up his house was crushed by some farmers ‘the best laid schemes I’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley’ meaning the best laid plans often go wrong which comments on the futility of the American dream from the beginning of the novella.

Lennie and George’s dream is the main way in which Steinbeck presents the futility of the American dream. George and Lennie’s dream is to own a piece of land and have their own ranch where “we belonged”and they can settle down

Lennie and George’s dream to own land and “live off the fatta the land” is not an uncommon one; it is made clear by the character crooks that many men have “a little piece of land in his head”. This begins to show the futility of the

At the beginning Crooks was incredibly cynical of the dream due to the many men who he has seen had this dream before however as the dream becomes more and more plausible he asks to be apart of it. Crooks starting out bitter about the dream is a tool used by Steinbeck to present the truth of the American dream, but after a character who never believed it could happen agrees it fills the reader with false hope. Crooks is a victim of horrific racism in the novella and due to this is often presented as a very isolated character, “A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody” this is due to the fact that racial segregation and discrimination was still legal in California in the 1930s and this is why the dream is so important to him. Lennie treats Crooks with kindness and is never prejudice towards Crooks, “Lennie smiled helplessly in an attempt to make friends” this is one of the reasons Crooks joins the dream because his own dream is to be treated as an equal. Candy similarly uses the dream to escape his unhappiness with his own life. Candy is an elderly man on the ranch who is presented by Steinbeck as undervalued on the ranch, his dog which partially symbolises him is shot in the back of the head, Steinbeck uses this to make it clear to the audience the idea of survival of the fittest which is very important in the 1930s where due to the unemployment