John Steinbeck also wrote a non-fictional book called ‘America and Americans: Paradox and Dreams’ other wise known as ‘Of Mice and Men’ in which he talked about the dream of finding a home, he tried to explore why it is that this dream is particularly powerful in American culture. He linked it to the fact that the history of America is a land of immigrants and pioneers.
‘The home dream is only one of the deepest American illusions, since they cannot be changed, function as cohesive principles to bind the nation together and make it different from other nations’.
‘Consider the dream of hunger for home. The very word can reduce nearly all of my compatriots to tears. Builders never build houses, they build homes. The dream home is a permanent seat, not rented but owned, it is a centre where a man and his wife grow graciously old, warmed by the radiance of well washed children and grand-children’.
It is important to have dreams, hopes and ambitions because they offset the misery of real life. These are very important to people whose lives are hard, insecure and unrewarding because it makes their lives worth living. The characters in ‘Of Men and Mice’ are no different they all have dreams and ambitions.
This need for dreams is most pronounced in George and Lennie’s dream of living off the ‘fatta the lan’ soothes Lennie, it is kept alive by being retold regularly, it gives them something to look forward to, and to strive for. George is more realistic about life because he understands the harsh realities, and is reluctant to tell Lennie the story, but once he does so he enjoys it. Without Lennie to drive him on, George is likely to spend his steak on gambling in poolrooms and chasing women as an antidote to hard work. Which he often refers to, when he is frustrated with Lennie.
Candy is another person in the story with dreams, he is old, disabled, homeless and his greatest fear is that his dream will disappear. The dream they have is about having power over their lives, being able to turn away unwelcome visitors, and to warmly greet welcome ones and keep what they sow, which are matters they have no control of on the ranch. Even Crooks, who has to cope with the added disadvantage of being black in a racially prejudiced community, and who does not dare to have dreams, becomes mesmerized when Lennie and Candy talk about the small holding. For one brief minute it is his dream to.
It is Crooks who puts George and Lennie’s dream in the context of all migrant workers who, as part of a generation who experienced mass unemployment and social upheaval, shared visions of a better future in what became known as the American Dream: ‘I see hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches with bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads. Hundreds of them… nobody never gets no land. It’s just in their head! As Crooks predicts, when Lennie dies he takes the dream with him.
Curley’s wife has a bad marriage and no company; she is, like Lennie, another tragic character whom dreams do not come true. She longs for a glamorous life in Hollywood. The naivety with which she explains away the letter she was promised by a flirtatious man offering her parts in the movies is partly a reluctance to admit the truth to herself. She kept the dream alive in order to have something to live for.
Of Mice and Men chronicles a time of social disintegration and mass unemployment. Employers took advantage of traveling workers with bad pay, insecure work and hazardous conditions. The power of the boss and Curley is never far away in the novel, the boss makes his position towards the white workers when he is confrontational with George at the interview. Even Slim has no power to influence the vicious and vindictive Curley when he sets out to kill Lennie. Candy demonstrates the plight of farm workers with industrial injuries, with no family and no place to go. In the 1930’s state provided social services and old peoples homes were virtually non existent.
Racial prejudice was routine and normal in 1930’s America. Crooks demonstrates this in Of Mice and Men. He is ostracized from the bunkhouse, he is abused by the boss regardless whether he is a fault, and he shares his living quarters with on one. It is obvious Crooks would get lynched if Curley’s wife chose to pick on him. Even at Christmas when Crooks is invited into the bunkhouse he is picked on for a fight. In a distorted sense of fairness the others see no reason why Crooks should not be their victim just because he is black, but ironically, they make allowances for his back injury.
Curley’s wife is sexually discriminated against because she is a woman; few women could be economically independent in the 1930’s, so marriage was their only option. The nameless woman marries a small-minded man who has no hesitation about leaving her at home on a Saturday night while he probably visits a brothel. He suspects her of being unfaithful and frowns on her attempts to fulfill the basic human need for company. To the workers she is jail bait. It is not worth their jobs to talk to her. The bunkhouse is the domain of men only, and there is no female company on the ranch.
There is also discrimination against the disabled in this book. If you look towards the attitudes people have towards Lennie, without George his only options would be jail or a mental institution, referred to by Crooks in colloquial language as a booby-hatch. He joins the others in being a character whose futile efforts to create a better life are thwarted by a widespread social injustice in 1930’s America.
