John Steinbeck’s famous book Of Mice and Men makes readers wrestle with loss and question their morals. It subtly builds upon multiple themes of friendship, power, loneliness, and, most notably, dreams. The harsh setting juxtaposes the characters’ dreams, and without them their situations are very bleak: George and Lennie were running from another town and the trouble they got into there; Curley’s wife was only a teenager who impulsively married someone she didn’t love; Crooks was a crippled black man on an all-white ranch, surrounded by people who wanted nothing to do with him; and Candy was an old man who knew it was only a matter of time before the others on the ranch threw him out to fend for himself. Additionally, it was set in the
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One that was introduced in the beginning of the book and repeated all of the way to the end was George and Lennie’s dream of buying their own patch of land and living on it. The first time in the book George recites their dream to Lennie, he says, “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world,’...’With us it ain’t like that...we got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us,’” (Steinbeck 14). There is nothing wrong with them differentiating themselves from other workers, however, this is his reasoning for why they are going to someday be in a position to buy land and a house. The irrationality of it is called out by Crooks, when he is still angry with Lennie after he came into his room. He says, “Jesus, I seen it happen too many times. I seen too many guys with land in their head. They never get none under their hand,” (Steinbeck 76). Though Crooks was negative in most of the things he said, what he says there is fairly reasonable: he says he has seen it himself multiple times with no differing outcomes, and, given the time period, buying a house was an incredibly difficult thing to do. Despite this, though, Candy, and, briefly, Crooks, join in on this dream too, because it was, at the very least, something different from the unforgiving environment they had become accustomed to. The theme is solidified at the very end of the book, when George is put in a position where he has to kill Lennie. He uses their dream as a way to kill Lennie gently, in the most peaceful way possible. He says, “‘We’ll have a cow,’ said George. ‘An’ we’ll have maybe a pig an’ chickens. ...an’ down the flat we’ll have a … little piece alfafa--’...Lennie begged, ‘Le’s do it now. Le’s get that place now.’ ‘Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta.’...He pulled the trigger.” (Steinbeck (pdf 52)). It’s up to the reader to decide why they think George killed Lennie at all, but what is apparent is that he did it
One that was introduced in the beginning of the book and repeated all of the way to the end was George and Lennie’s dream of buying their own patch of land and living on it. The first time in the book George recites their dream to Lennie, he says, “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world,’...’With us it ain’t like that...we got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us,’” (Steinbeck 14). There is nothing wrong with them differentiating themselves from other workers, however, this is his reasoning for why they are going to someday be in a position to buy land and a house. The irrationality of it is called out by Crooks, when he is still angry with Lennie after he came into his room. He says, “Jesus, I seen it happen too many times. I seen too many guys with land in their head. They never get none under their hand,” (Steinbeck 76). Though Crooks was negative in most of the things he said, what he says there is fairly reasonable: he says he has seen it himself multiple times with no differing outcomes, and, given the time period, buying a house was an incredibly difficult thing to do. Despite this, though, Candy, and, briefly, Crooks, join in on this dream too, because it was, at the very least, something different from the unforgiving environment they had become accustomed to. The theme is solidified at the very end of the book, when George is put in a position where he has to kill Lennie. He uses their dream as a way to kill Lennie gently, in the most peaceful way possible. He says, “‘We’ll have a cow,’ said George. ‘An’ we’ll have maybe a pig an’ chickens. ...an’ down the flat we’ll have a … little piece alfafa--’...Lennie begged, ‘Le’s do it now. Le’s get that place now.’ ‘Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta.’...He pulled the trigger.” (Steinbeck (pdf 52)). It’s up to the reader to decide why they think George killed Lennie at all, but what is apparent is that he did it