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Of Mice And Men Context Essay

1588 Words7 Pages

The novella Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck in 1937, is a book set in 1930s America, specifically in California. This story is fascinating in various facets, and I will explore one particular aspect throughout this essay. There were many characters throughout the novel who each had a dream, but many of these dreams were broken by conflicts due to other characters, the social context, setting, or some other factor. I think this can help us to understand what actually matters in life, and how the social context can change this. The way George reacts to Lennie after he accidentally kills Curley’s wife is a conflict that shatters George’s dreams. In the time of the Great Depression, owning land was near impossible for many people, especially …show more content…

“George said reverently, ‘Jesus Christ! I bet we could swing her.’” When Lennie kills Curley’s wife, Curley becomes mad and sets out to kill Lennie. “He worked himself into a fury. ‘I'm gonna get him. I'm going for my shotgun. I'll kill the big son-of-a-bitch myself.’” Here, George has no option but to go along with this. This is emotionally devastating for George, because Lennie and him had always dreamed of a little place they would own and live in. This is broken by the fact that Lennie earned the enmity of almost the entire ranch. This makes it almost impossible for George to even imagine that they would live in a place of their own with this troubled incident in their past. In this text, the idea of owning land is a motif. Almost everything that George and Lennie did was focussed on buying land of their own. This is the American Dream. This was an outlook back in the Depression era, which revolved around the idea that owning land was everyone’s wish and hope. However, it is often called the Illusion of the American Dream because it is often not feasible at all. This was because not many people could afford to pay the associated expenses with owning a

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