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Of Mice And Men's American Dream

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For many years America has dreamed to manifest its own destiny. Dreams of a better life, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion kindled a hidden desire in Americans causing many settlers to immigrate. This created a movement that would later be known as the great American Dream. People traveled west in search of a better life and firmly believed that their lives would become better essentially embodying America as the land of opportunity. It was not until the late 1920s and early 1930s that this dream changed immensely after the stock market crashed. The dreams once pursued had succumbed to the emergence of the Great Depression and many once hopeful people were left in ruin (“Of Mice and Men.” Novels 250). One of the main topics of the …show more content…

Steinbeck perfectly portrays the harsh truth of society and how many dreams are destroyed causing misery and emptiness (“Of Mice and Men.” Novels 248). At first George and Lennie aspire to own a farm that they can call their own. Candy and Crooks later join this dream to escape from society’s harsh judgment. The four of them slowly make their way towards their goal. However, their dream ends when Lennie kills Curley 's wife and is hunted down. George is forced to shoot him and their dream of owning a farm ends. “ And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. He hand shook violently, but his face se and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger.” (Steinbeck 106). George and Lennie’s hope and dreams end with the death of Lennie. Steinbeck shows that the American Dream inspired many during the 1930’s, but ultimately it would end in failure, grief, and sorrow. Curley’s Wife also had a dream to become an aspiring actress. "He says he was gonna put me in the movies. Says I was a natural. Soon 's he got back to Hollywood he was gonna write to me about it." (Steinbeck 88). Her dream is ultimately ruined by her mother who steals the letter that she is expecting from the executive. It is obvious that Curley’s wife is desperately lonely by her behavior on the

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932 Words | 4 Pages

John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men follows two migrant farmers and their experiences working towards their dream. The story takes place in the Salinas Valley during both the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, when jobs were few and far between. George and Lennie have a dream of owning land, which is inhibited by these conditions. On the farm they come to work on, they meet the sultry wife of the Curly, the boss’ son. She was deprived of achieving her dream or stardom, and is left constantly craving attention in any way she can get it.

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757 Words | 4 Pages

When a bus drops them off 4 miles from their destination, the duo stays there one night and Lennie is instructed, that if anything bad happens he should “hide in the brush”. Working on the ranch the make an enemy, Curly, who’s hand is crushed by Lennie in the fight, and several friends, Candy, who offers to help them buy the land, and Slim who seems to always see all sides of the issue. Later they attempt to make their dream come true but in the end, Lennie accidentally kills Curley's wife,snaps the lonely woman’s neck, and is shot by Curly in revenge for what Lennie did. I believe the novella has sufficient foreshadowing that, when he is shot, you are not extremely surprised. A rude bus driver kicks Lennie and George off his bus 4 miles from the ranch

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932 Words | 4 Pages

Just when George pulls the trigger, the motivation and hope in achieving the ambitious dream farm vanishes in thin air. The dream farm dies away with Lennie; the hope and motivation in George is lost

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255 Words | 2 Pages

Obviously this impacted several dreams of the people for instance, not many could become homeowners due to insufficient funds. Readers can clearly see an example of this within John Steinbeck's novella “Of Mice and Men” Throughout this powerful book, Steinbeck introduces a plentiful of strategies to clearly display the message of, the degeneration of life. Strategies employed throughout include the exposure of the common shattered dream, the distinct disadvantage of the lower class, and the impediment of companionship, all to express the central idea of the struggles in which the lower class

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755 Words | 4 Pages

Dreams Lost, Never Found To quote a translation of Robert Burns’s poem, “To a Mouse”, “The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men often go awry and leave us nothing but grief an' pain for promised joy” (Shoomp). This quote well compliments John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men, which has a universal theme of dreams being predestined to failure. Among the most prominent examples of unrealized dreams are George and Lennie’s shared dream of owning a farm to call home, Crook’s dream of being accepted as an equal to the other white men, and Curley’s wife’s dream of becoming an actress and making something out of herself. From the very beginning of the novel, George and Lennie share a dream of buying a farm on which they could belong and live harmoniously on.

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1047 Words | 5 Pages

Stage One: Pre-English: Responding to Texts – Of Mice and Men Question 1: How does Steinbeck use the motif of the American Dream as a means of combating the hardships of life? (Refer to the components of this dream, why does it seem far-fetched and yet how does it bring happiness to the impoverished characters?) Thesis: John Steinbeck’s 1937 novella, Of Mice and Men, is set in 1930s America and portrays the struggles and hardships for people living during the Great Depression. Steinbeck conveys the importance of the American Dream in times of hardship, through the techniques of characterisation, foreshadowing and repetition.

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777 Words | 4 Pages

Marco Rubio, a respected politician and the Senator of Florida once said, “The American Dream is a term which is often used but also often misunderstood. It isn’t really about becoming rich or famous. It is about things much simpler and more fundamental than that.” Of Mice and Men revolves around the Great Depression and migrating farmers who are in the search of a better life. Through the use of figurative language, a wide lexical range and varying sentence length, Steinbeck portrays the bunk house as being an allegorical prison and the residents being prisoners because of the harsh realities of the Great Depression and the dying American Dream.

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1447 Words | 6 Pages

John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men, takes place during the Great Depression in the 1930’s, in the Salinas Valley, California. It establishes the prospect of the American Dream, discrimination,loneliness, and disenfranchisement through its characters. George and Lennie provided the value of the American Dream, to which the leading female role, Curley’s wife, represents how women are exempt from the American Dream, and appeared as less than equal to men. She developed a form of loneliness throughout the course of the novel. The novella seeks to demonstrate the way of which life was like for the characters of all different statuses and backgrounds.

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153 Words | 1 Pages

Of Mice and Men is a novel solely about the Great Depression and two friends and migrant workers named George and Lennie getting through it together. They dream of buying a ranch together. This novel had many good aspects like the idea of an american dream and also some not great aspects. John Steinbeck shows George and Lennie traveling all over together and planning on buying a ranch with the help of a friend, Candy. This is a marvelous aspect of the book because it shows the american dream.

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598 Words | 3 Pages

Even by working hard, people don’t always get what they want. In the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Lennie and George are two friends who are traveling to find a job, so they can finally earn money and live their dream life. They find the farm, and they had a hard path in the future to get their dream. Whether they will reach it is the real question. John Steinbeck developed the impossibility of the American dream in the 1930s by showing that people worked hard for their dreams, if they can’t physically do work they aren’t interesting to people, and people following their dreams become selfish.

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1801 Words | 8 Pages

The initial paragraphs of John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men introduces Lennie and George, two men living on the road, in search of a job. Both men have dreams of their own and depend on each other in order to achieve them. George takes care of Lennie, who is mentally incapable, while Lennie provides company to George. These men wander around hoping to achieve the American Dream. They continue to go after it, without realizing that they will never be able to obtain it.

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586 Words | 3 Pages

During the Great Depression, many unemployed workers moved to California to look for work on the ranches. This was because they had a dream to become successful, which is also called “the American dream”. In John Steinbeck’s book Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie, the two main protagonists, worked on a ranch chasing the american dream just like many other americans who dreamt of becoming successful. They tried to save money to buy their own land and live a life where they were successful. However, they never accomplished that, and like many others, did not realize they would never accomplish it.

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548 Words | 3 Pages

(Steinbeck 103). Lennie messed up by killing Curley’s wife on accident and now George finally realizes that with Lennie around he won’t accomplish his dream. ‘Lennie said, “Oh! That’s nice,” and he stroked harder. “Oh, that’s

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1723 Words | 7 Pages

Since 1931 when James Truslow Adams first created the phrase “the American Dream”, people believed that America continuously offered everyone an equal opportunity to be successful. John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men, was set during the Great Depression. Farms were struck hard during the Depression, and the two main characters George and Lennie were farm hands during this time. They had experienced the misunderstandings of other farm hands in terms of Lennie’s mental disability, but they were trying to earn enough money to buy their own farm. The idea of this farm drove Lennie and George to keep working, and like many others during this time they hoped to achieve this dream.

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1110 Words | 5 Pages

Lastly Curley's wife is shown as a typical pretty woman who yearns to be a famous movie star. Steinbeck uses each of these layered characters to depict the theme of the American Dream. The first instance in the book where the unrealized dream is depicted is when Lennie and George are in the brush after coming from the previous ranch. They are fairly poor so they need to keep finding new jobs on various ranches.

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