Hopes And Dreams In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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The novel, Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck was published in 1937. Steinbeck’s novel is the story of two best friends who are living and working together to reach their hopes and dreams. They find work around the Salinas Valley in California on a ranch there. While together, the two men face several conflicts due to one of them being mentally impaired. This results in a childish grown man who needs someone to look after him. Steinbeck’s novel reveals the importance of connections to others, having hopes and dreams, and the results of cruelty that some resort to out of frustration. Of Mice and Men tells the story of how people react to difficult events in theicr lives positively or negatively. When some people struggle they seek …show more content…

Hopes and dreams can help impact the lives of people by giving them more motivation to work harder than others in similar situations to them. Hopes and dreams help them know they have a plan to work towards those dreams and they can’t just accomplish it without putting effort in. George and Lennie are on the new ranch chatting away, when Lennie asks for George to tell him about the rabbits again. Their dream is to live on a couple acres of land, to have animals such as pet rabbits, and to live off the land. ‘The rabbits’ is Lennie’s code for them to talk about their dream house and life. This however, had always been merely a dream, never a real goal they expected to come close to achieving. While George was retelling their dream to Lennie, Candy happened to hear about it and he liked the idea of it so much he wanted to join them. Candy is an older man who lost his hand on the ranch George and Lennie are working on and was paid compensation for it so he has a fair amount of money now. This dream has become possible because of George figuring out a place to buy that’s exactly what they envisioned. Candy enthusiastically questioned, “How much they want for a place like that?” George thought carefully wondering why he wants to know, “Well--I could get it for six hundred bucks. The ol’ people that owns it is flat bust an’ the ol’ lady needs an operation,”(59). Candy, who only heard of Lennie and George’s dream once, loved the idea so much he was visibly excited and it made his overall mood better. When people have dreams it gives them motivation to be happier or have a better life. Without any dreams you’re just taking life as it’s given to you everyday so if you don’t like something you just take it instead of telling yourself mentally it’ll be over soon you just suffer through it hoping it’ll eventually end. If George and Lennie didn’t