George Milton is a short man with a dark of a face with restless eyes and sharp, strong features he too was wearing denim clothes and a shapeless hat; he was the bossy one and told Lennie what to do because Lennie didn’t have a mind of his own and what he thought was right was wrong that’s why they got chased out of Weed.
At the start of the book Steinbeck describes the place as a dream. ‘A few miles south of Soledad, the Salina River drops in close to the hillside band and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool.’ But George and Lennie dream was about having a little house and having alfalfa for the rabbits not a place like this.
George would tell Lennie about the dream like a bedtime story to help Lennie sleep. ‘Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. With us it’s not like that, we got a future; we got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us… But not us.’ Then Lennie broke in like a child knowing the story by heart but still wanting to hear it from someone else. ’Because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you that’s why…’ This shows Lennie feels welcome around George and that he can rely on him. ‘… But some day- were gonna get the jack together and were gonna have a little house and couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs and-… an have rabbits … we’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter, we’ll just say the hell with goin’ to work, and we’ll build up a fire in the stove and set around it an’ the roof.’ This shows they have hope to make this dream come true.
Steinbeck often refers to the American dream. The American dream was a sigh of hope, happiness and not to be treated like a slave. People had to have this dream because the ‘Great Depression’ was around the same time. People would move to California to work and once they had the money they would be able to live that dream. The dream was all about being able to live the life they should have lived by having there own land, fruits, vegetables and animals; this is just like Lennie and George’s dream. The only way, Lennie and George would be able to make this dream was to work hard enough to earn it and to be successful.
For George and Lennie, the dream could be seen as ‘ wishful-thinking’- they knew they would never own a farm but they still wanted to re-create happier times, when they were young and around family, living a cosy life with loads of food and being wanted; it was like paradise for them. Another reason why Lennie and George made this dream was to have hope that it would be better working condition and not to be ‘canned’ when they didn’t want to work. Also to have a home to make anyone feel welcome to stay.
‘If we don’t like a guy we can say, get the hell out; and by god he’s got to do it. An if a fren’ come along, why we’d have an extra bunk, and we’d say, why don’t you spen’ the night? An’ by god he would.’ This show they are the bosses in their own home and what they say goes.
The dream was only make believe but at the ranch it could come true by letting Candy an old man with one hand in to the dream, he was know as ‘The old swamper’. He tells George and Lennie what he can do to make the dream come true. ‘I anit much good with on’y one hand, I lost my right hand here on this ranch. That’s why they give me a job swampin, an’ they give me two hundred an’ fifty dollars cause I los’ my hand. An’ I got fifty more saved up right in the bank, right now. Tha’s three hundred and I got fifty more comin’ at the enda the month.’ So if they did let Candy in to the dream, then they would be one-step closer to making their dream come true but George wasn’t very sure about it. ‘ George half-closed his eyes. I gotta think about that. We was always gonna do it by ourself. Candy then interrupted him, I’d make a will an’ leave my share to you guys in case I kick off, ‘cause I anit got any relatives nor nothing.’ This shows Candy really wants to be part of this dream because he hasn’t got anyone or any thing to look forward to, so he is willing to make a will and to leave his money to Lennie and George just in case he dies in the time when they are colleting the money.
Looking closely at the character of Lennie. His behaviour and his personality shows us that he will get in trouble with this sort of disability, as he don’t know the difference between right and wrong. One example of this is when George and Lennie were in Weed; Lennie just went up to the young lady, as he doesn’t know it is wrong to grab a lady’s dress, she began to scream. As soon as Lennie heard the scream he started to panic and held on tightly. This shows Lennie doesn’t know his own strength, which can hurt someone or some thing even if he doesn’t intend to. The same sort of thing happened with Curley and then with his wife, that’s when Lennie lost control because he didn’t want to get in to trouble, so he covered her mouth to stop her from screaming, but of course Lennie doesn’t know if you shake a young women you can kill her. This shows he doesn’t learn from his mistakes.