Of Mice and Men

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        Of Mice and Men

In this essay I will be discussing how dreams are important in Of Mice and Men and I will be exploring the meaning of these dreams to the individual characters that have them and how the dreams relate to the historical and social context of the novel. The ideal objective of most ranch workers is to gather together a large fortune and eventually purchase a small farm, and "live offa the fatta the lan'." Lennie is driven to reach this objective by the prospect of "tending the ". However, this goal appears to be nothing more than a distant dream until Candy, another worker on the ranch, offers to contribute his savings for a place on the future ranch. While subjected to the loneliness and poorness of the life they presently lead, George and Lennie's prospect of their own ranch attracts yet another hopeful, Crooks, the  stable buck, and Candy, the ranch's swamper. Curley’s wife had a dream of becoming a Hollywood actress and starring in films, “Coulda been in the movies, an’ had nice clothes”. She is one of the characters in the book that are lonely and isolated and she craves for attention.

Following the collapse of the New York Wall Street stock market in 1929, the US entered a extended period of economic depression from which it only emerged at the onset of the Second World War in 1939. During this period of failed businesses, harsh poverty and long-term unemployment, hoards of migrant workers came to California from other parts of America in search of work. In the ‘dust bowls’ of the south-west (mainly in the states of Oklahoma and Arkansas), a series of droughts and failed crops added to the migrant west. Men, mostly travelling alone, migrated from ranch to ranch on short-term, poorly paid contracts, this being the only work available to them.

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The origin of these dreams all has something to do with the American Dream. The American Dream is a particular term usually implying a successful and satisfying life. This term usually implies financial security and material comfort, but can also imply a dream of fame, exceeding social, ethnic, or class boundaries, or simply living a fulfilling life. Perceptions of the American dream are usually framed in terms of American , its associated supposed meritocracy, and the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Bill of Rights. The term is not easily defined, and has subjective meaning to many who claim it. The ...

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