The Failure of the American Dream Everyone is in search of the American dream. Throughout the 1930’s the United States was enveloped in the depths of a Great Depression. During this time, the dream of a better life was hard if not nearly impossible to achieve. If you were an African-American during this time, you were even further from grasping any dream. With all the hardships and loneliness associated with the Great Depression, what was there left to dream for? During the Great Depression, John Steinbeck took the dream for a better life that many people needed and wrote Of Mice and Men. Though the book ends in a failure to achieve this dream, it shows that having something to work for can drive you through any difficulty. Throughout Steinbeck’s
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People have always wanted a better life than the one they have. The need to improve, or better our life has been around since the beginning of time and will continue well into the future. During the Great Depression, people’s dreams seemed unachievable. “People often lost their entire life savings when local banks failed” (World Book 19). Not only were banks failing left and right, but farmers in the Great Plain states were losing their land. In Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie frequently discuss their dream of owning their own piece of land. While George and Lennie have almost nothing but the dream in their possession, they have a plan on how they are going to achieve a little piece of the American Dream. George always gave great detail about exactly …show more content…
In Steinbeck’s novel, George and Lennie are from the north not from the plain states. Due to drought and poor farming practices, the land in many plain states were rendered useless for farming and herding. People left the Great Plains states to move to California, in search of farms to work on. These migrant farmers arrived to farms with far more workers than there were jobs. Employers knew that even a meager wage would not be turned down so most workers received pitifully low pay. Living conditions were horrendous. Tent cities were popping up everywhere and were unsanitary and overloaded. Californians did not like the “Dumb Okies”, which is what they called the mass exodus of families from the Great Plain states that were migrating into the state. They thought of the ‘Okies’ as baggy pants wearing simpletons who were uneducated, poor and desperate looking. The migrant farmers were putting a drain on the state’s resources and the police were ordered to step in and stop people from crossing the state line into California. Steinbeck toured some of these migrant farmer towns that were set up and used them as inspiration in his writing. He was hated and feared by many because he painted such a deplorable picture of the lives these farmers and ranchers lived day in and day out. This hate fueled some of, what critics say, is Steinbeck’s best writings. Later Steinbeck said that he did not think his writings of these
People have always wanted a better life than the one they have. The need to improve, or better our life has been around since the beginning of time and will continue well into the future. During the Great Depression, people’s dreams seemed unachievable. “People often lost their entire life savings when local banks failed” (World Book 19). Not only were banks failing left and right, but farmers in the Great Plain states were losing their land. In Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie frequently discuss their dream of owning their own piece of land. While George and Lennie have almost nothing but the dream in their possession, they have a plan on how they are going to achieve a little piece of the American Dream. George always gave great detail about exactly …show more content…
In Steinbeck’s novel, George and Lennie are from the north not from the plain states. Due to drought and poor farming practices, the land in many plain states were rendered useless for farming and herding. People left the Great Plains states to move to California, in search of farms to work on. These migrant farmers arrived to farms with far more workers than there were jobs. Employers knew that even a meager wage would not be turned down so most workers received pitifully low pay. Living conditions were horrendous. Tent cities were popping up everywhere and were unsanitary and overloaded. Californians did not like the “Dumb Okies”, which is what they called the mass exodus of families from the Great Plain states that were migrating into the state. They thought of the ‘Okies’ as baggy pants wearing simpletons who were uneducated, poor and desperate looking. The migrant farmers were putting a drain on the state’s resources and the police were ordered to step in and stop people from crossing the state line into California. Steinbeck toured some of these migrant farmer towns that were set up and used them as inspiration in his writing. He was hated and feared by many because he painted such a deplorable picture of the lives these farmers and ranchers lived day in and day out. This hate fueled some of, what critics say, is Steinbeck’s best writings. Later Steinbeck said that he did not think his writings of these