OMAM: The American Dream

Improved Essays
OMAM: American Dream
Do you ever feel like you're not really living life, but going by the mechanics of life, then find yourself dreaming of a different life. John Steinbeck focuses on the American Dream through a few key characters because he’s trying to portray how close you can get when you work for the little bit of heaven in life when the one you're living may be hell. So, in other sense, he’s trying to create this world where everyone works hard, dreams on, and lives by, like we still do today. Many want more out of life, but do nothing to change. It’s like Crooks said, ““They come, an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his head an’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’ ’””(Steinbeck, 46). George and Lennie were among these many men who wanted this little bit of heaven by land. Many men, however, had quit working for the bit of heaven, or found distractions to distract them from the hell they were living. George and Lennie, though, had really worked, and hoped to get their land, even when it was tough. They’d talk about it very frequently throughout the book about them getting their land, or just planning on how. An example of them planning is when they were talking and daydreaming about the land amongst themselves, George said,“O.K. Someday-we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs and-”” (Steinbeck, 14). The quote here explains how they dream about the land itself, but how they plan to get together and make it happen. It shows that they’re really serious about the dream, and willing to work for it and do anything to get to that point. They had come so close that they had it all planned out on how’d they get the money, till Lennie had ‘done a bad thing’. Though George and lennie were willing to work, or really focus on their dream, others may dream on. One that had to dream on was Curley’s wife, not just because she didn’t pursue her dream, but because she later then became absent from life. Her dream was to be in the pictures and to have many friends. To be very blunt she could had made something of herself if she really wanted to be in the pictures that bad, she could have worked for it like George and Lennie. She even said herself that she could have done something with her life, ““Seems like they aint’t none of them cares how I gotta live. I tell you I ain’t used to livin’ like this. I could made somethin’ of myslef ”” (Stienbeck, 88).
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in his head and got the furthest in pursuing his dream. He had a good, yet hard life, because he was living in a sense of hell of not being able to work for himself for a long time. Candy said, ““I planted crops for damn near ever’body in this state, but they wasn’t my crops, and when I harvested ‘em, wasn’t none of my harvest. But we gonna do it now, and don’t make no mistake about that. ”” In this he describes how we worked a lot for other people, but never himself, and he acknowledged that he may needed a little help. He went happily to George and Lennie, so that he may be useful to them and help them by working, that and through them he could have his dream of planting the crops for him, because he helped. Maybe it’s like Shmoop said ,““He has a vision of America where he can retain a little dignity working for Candy, Lennie, and George”” (Shmoop, Of Mice and Men Quotes, 3). Like Candy we must be hopeful and work for what we want even if we find our dream through somebody else.
When you have dream, Steinbeck is telling readers to work for that heaven in your head. Even though George, Lennie, Curley’s wife, and Candy didn’t get there heaven in this book, they fought for it. When you feel like you’re not really living life, going through the

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