Nobody ever gets to heaven, and nobody never gets no land', says Crooks to Lennie. What view of American society in the Depression years does Steinbeck present, and what, if any, comment do you think he is making in the novel?

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‘Nobody ever gets to heaven, and nobody never gets no land’, says Crooks to Lennie. What view of American society in the Depression years does Steinbeck present, and what, if any, comment do you think he is making in the novel?

 

This quote was said by Crooks to Lennie, when Lennie was inside Crooks bunk and he started talking about the dream that he had with George. Crooks was arguing that the dream will never come true, that he has seen it allot and it never happens, “I see hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches with their on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads. Hundreds of them. They come an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn on of ‘em ever gets it.”

 This shows the state of the people at the time of the depression. It shows the effect of the society on them, the loss of hope they had in the world, the depression made them lose hope of being happy and enjoying and fulfilling their aims in life.

For any ranch worker their Ultimate dream is to go to heaven, because heaven is where happiness is found, and due to the society they’re in happiness is very hard to find, I could also say that finding happiness is what every American wants, then actually the ultimate dream for the poor American ranch worker at the time is having a land of your own, being a self-sufficient person and not moving from ranch to ranch in order to live. This is what happiness is to them, and it’s hard to get. But what Crooks is saying is not only that achieving the dream (the American dream) and getting to heaven is hard he’s saying it’s impossible and that heaven is nowhere to be found. I could interpret the reason that made Crooks (Steinbeck) say this in two different views ; I could say that they lost hope in getting to heaven and happiness, this is because people have gone through too much bads in life they think happiness and dreams never come true, they see people having dreams and they themselves have dreams but they know in the end nothing would go right, it made them lose hope an believe heaven is just an illusion and its not possible, that life is so bad that nothing good is going to happen and that life is just nothing to look forward to and you learn that by trying and learning from other peoples mistakes just like Crooks had seen it with many men but sees the end of it, that they achieve nothing they want “I see hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches with their on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads. Hundreds of them. They come an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn on of ‘em ever gets it.”, Steinbeck shows this by making all plans that were planned by the characters not successful, this shows that heaven and dreams are just only in minds not in reality, this proves what Crooks said is correct, getting to heaven is impossible.

 I could also say that they stopped believing in god. They have waited for change to occur in their lives for so long but still nothing changed until they lost all hope in god and stopped believing in him. Now they have nothing to look forward to, people live and work so they could end up happy in heaven, but people in this society have lost all hope in god and they might even blame him for all of what happened to them, and they turned their backs on him therefore that would explain their bad life styles and all their sinning and inhuman ways of living, they live each day with no morals and principles to follow. That’s another reason to make Crooks believe that getting to heaven isn’t possible that’s because when believing in getting to heaven is the same as  in god, but ranch workers have got to the point where they don’t believe in heaven or god.

                Although I can argue that Crooks quote could be both, realistic and pessimistic I think that Steinbeck’s presentation of the society at the time of the depression is very pessimistic which makes him very negative towards the depression and the society. Steinbeck was really successful in representing a very harsh and cruel society by symbolizing and showing some incidents that show the society in a negative way and how it had different effects on people and different views and ways of living, he didn’t show anything positive, only symbolizing the depressing state of the ranch and characters in the novel. And that shows the quote in a more pessimistic way, that everything would go wrong and you can’t get anything out of this society.

Examples, techniques and effective ways of presenting his pessimistic view of the depression are; well firstly the name of the book “of mice and men” this title comes from a poem written by Robert Burns and it says “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft a-gley.”

        It means that often the plans that a man can plan for himself often go wrong 'Gang aft agley' is Scottish and means 'Often go wrong'. Which is proven in the novel everything planned wasn’t fulfilled and it might have to be related to believing in fate that whatever you do you cannot change fate or gods will, and in the story nothing that was planned by Candy, Lennie or George works out, which again proves what Crooks said; “nobody never gets no Land”.

Another example is; showing the society as harsh and cold like nobody caring for anyone. For example when Carlson easily kills Candy’s dog, not understanding how important the dog means to Candy, but then very easily getting the gun putting it in front of him like nothing went wrong, also Slim easily drowning the Pups “I drowned four of ‘em right of” he says it very casually as if it was easy to kill a living soul and at the time. Steinbeck is trying to show that it was, and this was very effective because it clearly shows the coldness and selfishness of the society people not caring about how you feel, being very unsentimental and irrational about their actions and the things they do.

                 

Steinbeck makes dreams and happiness impossible. He’s saying that nobody gets to heaven which symbolises happiness, and no one gets any land which might symbolises a dream, Steinbeck is criticizing the society through Crooks. He proves his criticism through the characters in the novel , Steinbeck makes each characters have a dream, at point in the novel, most characters dream of a different life and this proves how bad the depression on the people , such as Curley’s wife, which wanted to be a Hollywood star, as she claims she had the chance and it was ruined so it shows even if you have chances you still can’t get to your dream and be happy which makes it less likely to happen, another example of a character with a dream other than George and Lennie is Candy, wanting to also live his dream of having his own place and not being lonely like the others and due to the loss of his dog, which was his only companion he needed some company and that explains why he was able to give all the money he has to George to share their dream, but it also failed in the end. Even Lennie and George they had a dream but Steinbeck shows how un important having a dream is and he shows this by making them only have 10 $ to achieve their dream. This proves that Crooks (Steinbeck) is right about his criticism of the society, because in the end no one got their dream and George and Lennie don’t get their land and no one got any happiness through out the whole novel. This shows how the depression had a very big impact on the characters and you might even feel sympathy for them. The land that Crooks is talking about and the dream that every American ranch worker wants, are the same thing. Therefore Steinbeck is clearly showing how the depression was the reason that destroyed heaven and dreams, which I might interpret that he’s using the depression as a metaphor by making it seem as if it was a barrier or something that destroys dreams and heaven, which again is a very pessimistic view of the society, because if there was no depression then the characters would live a better life and things would be better for every character, ranch workers wouldn’t have to keep moving from ranch to ranch n order to live, people would be more sentimental and sensitive.

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Steinbeck presentation of the American society is shown mainly through the ranch workers and the way they act in the novel. He represents the depression and the society in America at the time by using the technique called Microcosm (where a small event or incident is used to represent events on a much larger scale) he does this by making each character represent a part of the depression and its effects on the society. He represents the ranch as the American society

For example If we consider the ranch to be a microcosm of 1930s American society, then Curley and his ...

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