George is the one in control, he finds the pair work, looks after Lennie, he has ideas on how to get work and is a good planner. Lennie is big and slow witted, forgetful, couldn’t work alone, not responsible, relies on George and often imitates George. George and Lennie share the same dream throughout the whole of the book and we are first introduced to this in the first chapter. The first time we hear there dream is when they are resting on a hill not far from a ranch near Soledad having run away from Weed in the North after Lenny’s “trouble”, they hope they can pursue there dream in the South. Lennie treats the dream like a bed time story, it doesn’t seem real. All he wants is some rabbits. George tells the story in a tired way; this is shown by when he says sarcastically
“Red and blue and green rabbits, Lennie. Millions of’em.”
Steinbeck first shows the dream at the beginning of the book as hopeless and impossible in George’s opinion.
Crooks is the stable buck and has dark coloured skin and is clearly treated differently to the white workers at the ranch. His living conditions are quite poor and his place that he sleeps is described as a
“little shed that leans off the wall of the barn”.
Crooks bunk is described by Steinbeck as a “Long box filled with straw” The possessions which Crooks owns are “Medicine bottles”, “Saddle soap”, “Shoes”, “Rubber boots”, “Alarm clock”, “Shotgun” and a “California civil code book”. The fact that he owns a Californian civil code book is rather ironic as most of the rules exclude him because of the colour of his skin. In his past he has clearly experienced racism as he seems very uptight when talking to people and Steinbeck has set his book in the time when racism was still in America. Crooks has no real dream before he asks to be part of George, Lennie’s and Candy’s dream. When he first hears about there dream he is very scornful and Steinbeck cleverly uses Crooks position as an observer of how so many other people have had dreams that will never materialise into something real. He slowly starts to dream that it might happen and that he wants in.
Candy has worked on the ranch since he was a young man. He is now old and crippled, with only one arm. He was crippled on the ranch and received $250 in compensation, he fears being sacked and abandoned to his fate of being homeless and begging on the street. His only long term companion was his dog and he has just been shot for being old and useless, he feels depressed and feels he should be shot as he is old and near enough useless too. Candy sees a glimpse of hope to stop what he thinks is his fate when he hears about George and Lennie’s dream. Candy said to George “I’d make a will an’ leave my share to you guys in case I kick off,”. This meant that if Candy died he would leave his share of the property to Lenny and George. This seemed to be the deciding fact that made George agree to letting Candy into there dream and the fact that he would put a lot of money into it.
Curly’s wife dream was to be in the movies or theatre business. She claims that she met some bloke that said, “I was a natural”. She also says she met someone in a show who said she could “go with that show” and that he would send a letter to her. She blames her old lady for her dreams not working and for not showing her that letter. In reality the letter was probably never sent and she was probably not as talented as she thinks she is. She is married to a bloke she doesn’t love, she is lonely, lacks attention, her dreams are unfulfilled and she is an attention seeker
Until George allows Candy to join his and Lennie’s dream the dream seems very far off and almost impossible to George. As soon as Candy joins in the dream seems almost a reality and very near to coming true and George remarks “Jesus Christ!” Lennie believes the dream will happen but doesn’t seem very concerned about when as long as it does in the end. Steinbeck is very clever in the way in which he makes the dream seem impossible to start with but then believable and then ending the book tragically with people not knowing if the dream will happen.
Steinbeck uses dreams throughout the book to convey the fact that the American dream is only a dream and although sometimes you catch a glimpse of it being real it ends up not materialising and just staying a dream. The book also shows the optimism of the people in American and the fact that they still dream even in the “Great Depression”.` In conclusion, the American dream was nearly always a dream and never going to be reality.
