Part of The Student Room Group

  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

Of Mice and Men

Extracts from this document...

Introduction

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 rabbits". 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 African-American 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. ...read more.

Middle

fatta the lan'" but then Candy joins in with their dream and offers to help them on their future ranch "I ain't much good with o'ny one hand. I give me a job swampin'." This dream originates from the American Dream of living a fulfilling life. George thinks that by owning land they will become free from the insecurity of going from ranch to ranch that men had to go through at the time. George feels responsible for Lennie and wants him to feel safe. He also doesn't want to be bossed around by anyone and this offers him personal freedom. There is a difference between George's dream and Lennie's dream; George's dream is rational and he always thinks how he is going to achieve it whereas Lennie's dream is the vision which are the rabbits in his case which makes it childish. Crooks has a dream of being equal with all of the white people and not be treated like an animal. In the novel Crooks is treated very badly by the boss and some of the other people on the ranch. ...read more.

Conclusion

the sole motivation which led the country out of poverty and to a place of envy for the rest of the world. Dreams, historically, prove to be the catalyst between what is apparent and the unseen so the dream that all the characters have may have an outcome. In the novel the main protagonist do not achieve their dream as planned; the scheme was for both George and Lennie to have a place however at Lennie's death, George might have second thoughts about pursuing the dream hence it signifies the death of their dream. Curley's wife does not achieve her dream and neither does Crooks. Steinbeck does not let any of the dreams materialise in the apparent. Steinbeck's title Of Mice and Men comes from "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/gang afta agley" and so best plans may go astray however America did regain her position of power; women did achieve equality with men and the civil rights movement brought an end to the isolation of Crooks as a 'negro'. The American dream is still alive today with many migrants still flocking for a share of the 'dream'. Although "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/gang afta agley". ...read more.

The above preview is unformatted text

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Miscellaneous section.

Found what you're looking for?

  • Start learning 29% faster today
  • 150,000+ documents available
  • Just £6.99 a month

or


Not the one? Search for your essay title...
  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

See related essaysSee related essays

Related GCSE Miscellaneous essays

  1. An Analysis of Old Major's Speech: Animal Farm

    The effects are, in my opinion, that it gives the speaker added authority due to the confident manner of speaking which the rule of three results in. Repetition is also a main technique he uses. The effect of this that the information being repeated is retained in the memory of the listener.

  2. Essay on Animal Farm by George Orwell

    Snowball is, on the other hand, a great speaker and organizer. When Snowball comes up with the idea to build a windmill to produce electricity to the farm, it comes to an election. As Napoleon realizes that he is loosing the election he sends his nine strong dogs, which he has raised in secrecy, on Snowball.

  1. English - Of Mice and Men

    to vote, which is not to far from when the novel was written. This is why Steinbeck showed a lot of misogyny toward woman and hatred towards Curley's wife. She is used as a object for Curley to show readers that women's inferiority in the 1940s and how life was very unfair.

  2. Loneliness and Isolation in Of Mice and Men

    Although I do think that by doing this it gives herself a sense of relief as she is noticed (not always in the right way) by the ranch hands, an example is when Lennie tells of how she is 'purty'; which she takes to her advantage when desperately trying to talk to Lennie, which at first comes to no avail.

  1. Of mice and men

    When George and Lennie meet Slim for the first time Slim explains the fact that not many people on the ranch move around together. 'Ain't many guys travel around together, I don't know why maybe everybody in the whole damn world is scared of each other'.

  2. Of Mice and Men

    One phrase in which this can be illustrated is; 'Lennie, who had been watching, imitated George exactly.' This phrase implies that Lennie sees George as a role model, the way a young child may see his older brother as his hero.

  1. Of Mice And Men

    We can tell the novel is set in a very different culture to ours, because of the continual references to nature. The novel begins with the line "a few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green.

  2. one girl one dream

    I looked around, and all I could see were animals running away into the heart of the forest to keep safe. Some of the men were big and strong so I was not prepared to start an argument with them.

  • Over 160,000 pieces
    of student written work
  • Annotated by
    experienced teachers
  • Ideas and feedback to
    improve your own work