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Dreams in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men
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Most people have some kind of dream. A dream is something to indulgein, a means of escaping momentarily from the harsh reality of life.The beauty of a dream is that it gives a person a purpose in life.However these dreams are often thwarted by many obstacles along theway, as the characters of John Steinbeck’s “Of mice and Men”discover.
This is a novel of defeated hope and the unkind reality of theAmerican Dream. The main characters, George and Lennie are poormigrant workers, condemned to a life of wandering and hard work inwhich they are never able to reap the fruits of their labour.Their dreams were not uncommon among Americans at the time of theGreat Depression (the biggest economic decline in the history of theUSA). Their dream was a simple one: a place of their own, theopportunity to work for themselves and harvest what they sew with noone to take anything from them or give them orders. George wants aplace where he and Lennie can live away from the discrimination andprejudices presented by society towards them:
”We’d jus’ live there. We’d belong there. There wouldn’t be no morerunnin’ round the country and gettin’ fed by a Jap cook. No, sir, we’dhave our own place where we belonged and not sleep in no bunk house”.
The dream is summed up well by Candy, “Everybody wants a bit of land,not much, jus som’thin’ that was his”. George and Lennie desperatelycling to the notion that they are different from other workers whodrift from ranch to ranch because, unlike the others, they have afuture and each other. However characters like Crooks and Curley’swife serve as reminders that George and Lennie are no different fromanyone who wants something of his or her own.
Curley’s wife has already had her dream of being an actress pass herby and now must live a life of empty hope. Part of her dissatisfaction
