Candy is an old, white, cripple. While Candy does not describe his dream he believes that because he is a cripple, his dream cannot come true as he says “Jus’ as soon as I can’t swamp out no bunk-houses they’ll put me on the county.” This quote is Candy comparing himself to his dog, who because it couldn’t work no more, was shot to put it out of its misery, and Candy himself says “When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me.” Which makes it sound as though he has given up all together on achieving his dream. However, when he over hears George and Lennie talking about their dream and he offers to help, he seems to believe that the dream may just come back to him as he says “But I’ll be on our own place, an’ I’ll be let to work on our own place.” So it seems as if George and Lennie are Candy’s salvation.
Crooks is the crippled, black, stable buck on the farm. Unlike the rest of the workers, he is alienated from the rest because of his skin colour. However this alienation has left him resentful of other people as “He kept his distance and demanded that others kept theirs.” When Crooks finds out about what is now George, Lennie and Candy’s dream, he mocks it and tells Lennie and Candy “You’ll talk about it a lot, but you won’t get no land. You’ll be a swamper here till they take you out in a box… Lennie here’ll quit an’ be on the road in two, three weeks.” Eventually, he is won over by the dream and he to becomes entwined in it, “If you… guys would want a hand to work for nothing – just his keep, why’d I’d come an’ lend a hand.” However his dream doesn’t last an hour as before Candy and Lennie can leave he says “ ’Member what I said about hoein’ and doin’ odd jobs?… Well, jus’ forget it… I didn’ mean it. Jus’ foolin’. I wouldn’t want to go no place like that.” This change I believe is brought on by Curley’s Wife saying, “Well, you keep your place, then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.” This brings on the fact that blacks found it very hard to get anywhere at that time in America, and this seems to suppress the dream for Crooks.
Curley’s wife, believed that she was very close to achieving her dream as she believed she “Coulda been in the movies.” Her story goes that she met one of the actors in a ‘show’ that passed through her hometown. The actor said that she could have been in Hollywood. However Curley’s wife’s mother would not let her, as she was only fifteen at the time. After that the actor said he would go to Hollywood and write to her about it, but she never got the letter and she believed her mother stole it. While Curley’s wife dream seemed very close to realisation, it could have been very likely that the man was a fraud and was only after her for her body and this is what Curley’s wife doesn’t realise. Curley’s wife’s dream shows that the dream can be falsified to seem closer than it actually is and because Curley’s Wife does not realise this she holds on to the false memory that she almost made it. This brings on the realisation that the dream can be falsified to make it seem closer than it really is. So it seems that you must be sure of exactly what is going on.
At the end of the novel George, Lennie and Candy’s dream is destroyed when Lennie kills Curley’s wife and George shoots Lennie to save him from Curley. This should not stop George and Candy carrying on the dream, but it does as George decides that it cannot happen without Lennie, as after Lennie goes on the run George says “I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would.” These two sentences usher in the suggestion that Lennie was the driving force behind the dream and without him, George does not have the will to complete the dream. It could be also seen as ironic that the dream that George does not believe can happen, is the one he uses to subdue Lennie while he shoots him.
The book ‘Of Mice and Men’ has many examples of the ‘American Dream’. However there is not a single dream in the book that succeeds, as there is always a flaw, such as what you are, what you do and what you don’t do. All in all, the book suggests that the ‘American Dream’ cannot exist and that no matter how close it seems, there is always something ready to block the way to it.
