The American Dream In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

There are some aspects of a person’s life which can’t be reversed. Race, gender, appearance are all interchangeable, and prejudice counteracts this life certainty. In the novel “Of Mice and Men”, John Steinbeck expresses prejudice abundantly through the characters, Crooks and Curley’s wife, by revealing how it can cause a person to feel meaningless, lonely and abandoned.

Propaganda filters throughout the world to lean people’s views one way or another. In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, he uses George and Lennie, Crooks, and Curley’s wife to demonstrate the American Dream. This is unattainable but is their motivation to carry on their daily on the ranch lives. George and Lennie’s actions revolve around their American Dream. In a conversation between George and Lennie they discuss their dream, George states “... We’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres, an’ a cow and some pigs” (Steinbeck, 14). George says this to Lennie to motivate him to keep quiet and out of trouble so they can eventually reach these dreams. The American Dream can be defined as people

A twenty-five percent unemployment rate. People desperate for lodging and food. Families stretching every penny to support themselves. Government trying to solve these problems through reforms and programs. This is what the world in the 1930s was like for Lennie and George, two migrant workers traveling across California, earnestly trying to achieve the American Dream. Even though these dreams seem impossible to accomplish, during the Great Depression a dream was a reason to get out of bed.

If there was a favorable circumstance under which one could endeavour all their hopes and visions, wouldn’t one pursue it? The American Dream was introduced as an interpretation to cause the people of America in the early twentieth century to work tougher. The American Dream is the opportunity to reach the goals one sets for themselves. It is about having your dream job and life one has always fantasized about. The dream is also about having freedom and equality. In the novel, “Of Mice & Men”, John Steinbeck uses symbols and motifs such as the vicious slaughtering of virtuous animals, Crooks’ rubbish bunkhouse and Lennie and George’s deception of an ideal farm to exhibit the perception that materialistic success results in happiness is a major flaw in our thinking about the American dream, and it is this thinking which makes the dream unattainable for many.

The most important dream in this novel is that of the two main characters Lennie and George. They

For years upon years, we have heard the concept of an “American Dream” repeatedly. In school, at home, and there’s probably several who have mused about it on their own during their time by themselves. It seems that, also, several have concluded that the Dream is dead: gone, disappeared, poof into thin air. Some argue that it’s nothing but a pack of lies our predecessors were fed to believe that perhaps America had a better future lingering just around the corner, or that it’s changed much from what it was ‘back in the day’. The American Dream has remained unchanged since the Great Depression, but the nation we are today may slowly be killing it. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the Dream is to have that equal opportunity for success, the same as in Bobby Jindal’s and Ellen Powell’s articles, but it seems that inequality may be killing the American Dream.

not be the case for anyone else as George and Lennie were the only two

Of Mice and Men is a story set during the 1930's America, this was a

The American Dream has never been attainable. This has held true in the 1930s and today. The Dream is prevalent in pop culture and is mentioned quite frequently. Among others, Donald Trump claims to have achieved the Dream by incurring “a small loan of a million dollars” from his father to start his business. Rapper Aubrey “Drake” Graham has claimed to have “started from the bottom [and now he’s] here” although this isn’t entirely true considering he has actually “started from the [upper-middle class and now he’s] here.”

In Of Mice and Men one large theme that is conveyed throughout is the American dream, which is a phrase people use to describe the perfect life in America. However, even though many people go to achieve it, rarely is it accomplished. Since the novel was placed around the time of great depression, the phrase was used to give everyone hope. Steinbeck seems to know how rare the dream actually is and portrays this through characters in the text. The classic book shows and brings up many political and capitalistic views.

¨George, how long's it gonna be till we get that little place an live on the fatta the lan-an rabbits?¨ (Steinbeck, 56). Of Mice and Men was written by John Steinbeck. This book talks about two men named Lennie and George, on a journey to own their own farm one day. It also talks about other ranchers and their hopes, wishes and dreams. George and Lennie talk about how they're going to own a farm with cows, pigs and rabbits but in the end they never got to that point. The dreams they explain in the book Of Mice and Men symbolizes the American dream they wish to have.

What is the American dream? The American dream is a pursuit of happiness and the citizens deserve the opportunity to achieve their success by delegating hard work. A dream that takes a passion to go after. As George told Lenny “someday—were gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs and” “an’ live off the fatta the lan’,” Lenny shouted.”(Steinbeck 14) George and Lenny had an American Dream as a motivation to get where they’re going.George and lenny had a previous mistake happenin weed county that had them chased out out to find another job on another ranch. However, George and Lenny have their own American dream as an individual themselves.

When we try to chase our dreams, we end up in our own diminutive lonely world. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, has taught readers that the American dream can only ever be accomplished through hard work and determination. More times than others, we are distracted by the dream itself, and don’t chase the reality, which can then lead to high expectations, and without hard determination, that can then failure. In the end, we have been lonely for so long, chasing a dream, that when reality hits us, we become isolated and lonely. For George and Lennie, they have each other, until the American dream seemed too hard to chase.

What does it mean to live the American dream? How does that reflect on to Of Mice and Men? Lennie was a handful, and George dealt with all his problems that he caused and stuck with him and looked out for him when no one else would. George and Lennie were different from every other pair of guys, they had each other's back in the hardest times and they cared for each other.

John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men is set in the Salinas Valley during the Great Depression ("Of Mice and Men”). In Of Mice and Men each character has an American Dream that they wish to achieve. Lennie’s dream was to live on a little piece of land with George, “live off the fat of the land”, and have rabbits to feed and care for, but this dream is doomed by his mental handicap, lack of self control which causes problems, and lack of money.