Dreams In Slouching Towards Bethlehem By Joan Didion

described not as a practice of law but as a sporting event.  Just as there are

Hopes and dreams can be very important for peoples’ needs and survival. In Steinbeck’s story, Of Mice and Men, each of the main characters is driven by their hopes and dreams; it provides a sense of motivation and animation to each of their being. From Lennie and George being driven by their hopes and dreams of owning a farm, to Curley’s wife’s dreams of becoming an actress, having dreams plays an essential role in giving hope to the characters of Steinbeck’s story. Although dreams and hopes are essential themes in Steinbeck’s story, in a sense, Steinbeck does seem to emphasize that dreams are not meant to be achieved, and that there are other factors that are essential for survival. I believe Steinbeck included their dreams to give

What is it like to have a dream that makes you feel alive, that gives you another reason to rise and to strive in the morning and throughout the rest of your life? During the 1930’s this was often found within migrant workers who were searching for “The American Dream” of, at the time of the Great Depression, land, wealth, and liberty. Sadly, most people failed to find “The American Dream” and ended up isolated and empty. Dreams are the reason people chose to suffer this pain. In the novella, Of Mice and Men, the author, John Steinbeck, has demonstrated through dreams and false hope that they cause more trouble than good.

John Stienbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men” is about the death of the American dream. George, Lennie and Candy’s dream is to own their own piece of land to work and live independently on. This dream is destroyed by Lennie’s ignorance and Lennie’s strength, which he cannot control. Curley’s wife’s dream is to be a famous Hollywood actress. Her dream is destroyed by her marriage to Curley and the Hollywood director who promised to contact her about her acting career but never has. Crook’s dream is for equality. Racism and the attitudes of others destroy this dream.

Have you ever had a dream that you have been really committed to? Has something or someone ever stopped you short of that or any dream of yours? These questions are quite relevant to the main characters in the selections Of Mice and Men and “Only Daughter”. Of Mice and Men is a well-known story by John Steinbeck that tells the tale of two travel companions, George Milton and Lennie Small, as they dream and work hard to gain a small piece of land for themselves during The Great Depression, a harsh financial time. “Only Daughter” is an autobiographical essay by Sandra Cisneros about her struggles on trying to bond with her father while being impeded by her six brothers. The two selections’ main dreams are both corresponding and distinct in various ways. The dreams are also very substantial to the one who holds it. George and Lennie’s dream, in Of Mice and Men, influenced their lifestyle, behavior, and relationship between them. Sandra Cisneros’s dream, from “Only Daughter”, had an impact on the topic of her writing, her writing style, and her relationship with her father, who she has been trying to gain the approval for her writing career for many years.

One of the major themes of John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men is that having a dream creates hope, friendship, and determination, enabling one to strive onward in life with a sense of importance. Three major examples show this idea. The first example is Candy’s loss of his dog and his joining George and Lennie 's dream of owning land. A second example is Crook’s memory of his father’s

Los Angeles possesses the characteristics of great fame and fortune as well as immense homelessness and poverty. Often times, young people are misled by the financial success of some and assume that is typical of city people. Writers Joan Didion and Carol Muske-Dukes characterize the realization that an adolescent’s lifestyle is not suitable for the demands of a city as signaling the dawn of the apocalypse. In the essay, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” Didion highlights how the failure of society is brought about by a family’s inability to fulfill traditional roles and a lack of education as exemplified during the Hippie movement. While poet Muske-Dukes utilizes gothic language and allusion to illustrate the notion of an apocalypse in the poem “Like This”.

“I was not looking for my dreams to interpret my life, but rather for my life to interpret my dreams.” Susan Sontag was an American writer, filmmaker, teacher, and political activist. She expresses how life and all of its conflicts can affect one’s dreams. What are dreams? In life, dreams can be experiences to look forward to, hard work at a job, or other things of the imagination. Dreams can also be something to hope for or to accomplish. Sadly, there are conflicts that can get in the way of someone reaching their dream. A person’s sex can give power or powerlessness, determine the expected behaviors of male and females, and judge a person’s appearance. In the works of To Kill A Mockingbird,

We all go through the “dream stage”, but is it so that they are even meant to come across our minds during our slumber? Dreams are simply desires that certain people have a big hope to one day to actually experience their destinies and thoughts. Although reveries are recurrent, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston vividly contrasts the type of dreams people have and how they accomplish them. The determination in the 1920s set off success in the African American culture leading people to look past the limit and keep going. In “Freedom’s Plow” , Hughes believes dreams are set and fulfilled through unity, but on the other side of the grass Zora Neale Hurston in her piece, “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, she perceives that dreams are asymmetrical and are not

The ability for dreams, friendship and attitude to positively influence one’s life is conveyed through the repetition of George and Lennie’s dream about “living off the fatta the land”, and the way in which Candy and Crooks are pulled into the dream, giving them all a sense of hope in the otherwise hopeless context. Penn’s Into The Wild similarly demonstrates the importance and power of dreams and attitude, using Chris’ dream of reaching Alaska to illustrate the drive it can give someone, whilst Chris’ attitude towards freedom and escaping his materialistic society are conveyed through his manifesto and the diction he uses when speaking, demonstrating the power this instils in him. Chris’ eventual epiphany about friendship is mirrored in Of Mice and Men where George and Lennie have “somebody to talk to that gives a damn” and gives them the drive they need to hopefully achieve their dreams. Whilst these themes are comparatively balanced throughout both texts, the fundamental ideal of freedom is however demonstrated as a polar opposite of each other, with George and Lennie striving for material possession and wellbeing whilst Chris longs to get away from societal dependence on materialist and consumerist ideals.

The emotional impact of certain writings is changed by major events such as revolutions and wars. As seen in “Slouching towards Bethlehem” where you see the effects of the Vietnam war in the 60’s movement, hippy movement, and how war changed the beliefs of the American people Because of change it leads to a conflict between generations. In nonfiction, the tone and hidden meaning shown in the story are heavily influenced by major events at that time. In Joan Didion’s essay, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” she uses descriptive imagery, structure and references to WB Yeat’s poem “The Second Coming” to convey the turmoil and generational divide during the 1960’s in America.

In the words of Sigmund Freud, “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.” The legendary psychologist saw dreams as an avenue to study one’s underlying motives for action. Similarly, in literature one finds striking significance from the illusions of protagonists that often predict the nature of one’s psyche. Two such examples present themselves in Blanche, from Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, and the grandmother, from Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find. The former tale follows a lady without a home who finds herself reliant on her belligerent and bestial brother-in-law. The latter traces a family’s road trip South and their encounter with a wanted fugitive. Both Blanche and the grandmother find themselves tethered to their idealistic and often times hypocritical fantasies which signify their underlying mental instability and foreshadow their eventual ruinations. Williams and O’Connor examine their protagonists’ delusions through gender, clothing, and nostalgia.

The man recognizes how easy it is to surrender to the mirage of good dreams, where the richness of color and variety of detail provides a dangerous contrast to the grey monotony of both his and his son’s reality. Often, he awakens “in the black and freezing waste out of softly colored worlds of human love, the songs of birds, the sun,” (272). Those dreams are an invitation to rest in some nonexistent land. The man recognizes this as a dangerous temptation so he forces himself to wake up and face the cruel world rather than deteriorate in a world that no longer exists. His philosophy is that “the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was the call of languor and of death.” (18). Only bad dreams belong in his mind because all good dreams are a reminder of valuable days that cannot be lived

With Crumbled Dreams Crumbled dreams are what make us ache, are what make us blue. How can you go on in this life? If everything you longed for - lies like broken crockery at your feet.

Arthur Schnitzler’s piece, “Dream Story,” constructs the tale of a man’s desire to stray from the norm where he wishes to lose himself and reality. In Schnitzler’s work, there is a loss of mindfulness for modern society in order to explore a more coveted lifestyle full of pleasures. The author’s tactics encompass foreshadowing, symbolism, and figurative language to give a full account on this gentleman’s journey to a warped reality.