Of Mice And Men The American Dream

In Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, the protagonists, George and Lennie have an ambitious dream that leads them through ups and downs. Of Mice and Men was written from inspiration from a poem by Robert Burns named “To a Mouse” which was about how the best dreams often go wrong. Throughout his novella, Steinbeck attempts to tell readers that the American Dream is impossible to achieve and it is not worth setting their mind solely to that dream, as other people will discourage them and it will fall apart.

Throughout the novella, George and Lennie encounter many people who tell them that they should give up on their dreams as they are impossible to achieve. When Lennie and Candy are talking to Crooks in his room Crooks says, “‘I seen hundreds

Again involving Crooks, he is pessimistic with any dream as shown when he tells Lennie, “You’re nuts.”(Steinbeck 70). Crooks doubts all Lennie says about the dream. Steinbeck uses Crooks to represent the people in life that will tell one not to do things because they never got what they wanted. In addition to Crooks, Curley’s wife plays the same role, “‘He was gonna write to me about it...I never got that letter’”(Steinbeck 84) Steinbeck uses Curley’s wife to relay the message of not to trust anyone with a dream and to do everything you can to get the dream by oneself. He uses Curley to communicate a specific message about the American Dream. Her lofty dream is supposed to resemble the American Dream and her outcome is to represent the outcome of the majority of the people that strive for their high-flying dreams. Curley’s wife and how she ends up is evidence showing that Steinbeck believes that one shouldn’t solely focus on their dream as they will end up disappointed and

After George dream is ruined, he says, “‘I’ll stay all night in some lousy cat house.’”(Steinbeck 90) When George chooses to go to a cat house, he leads himself to a money focused life with women rather than a happiness focused life with friends. Therefore, Steinbeck suggests that human nature leads one off course and no matter how hard one tries for a dream human nature will distract them and lead them away from it.

Steinbeck uses the novella Of Mice and Men to communicate the message that the American Dream is too far fetched of a dream to set one’s mind solely on. The reason Steinbeck thinks that lofty dreams shouldn’t be the sole goal of humans was meant to communicate that people should always have a backup plan for everything as the best plans usually fall