Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - Look at George and Lennie's dream. Do you think that the dream had any chance of coming true? What made it likely the dream would fail?

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Omar Khan

Look at George and Lennie’s dream. Do you think that the dream had any chance of coming true? What made it likely the dream would fail?

The book is set in southern California at the time of the Great depression. It is about two ranch workers who constantly have to move because of one’s stupidity. George is a short man with strong features. Lennie is his opposite, he is a huge man with big sloping shoulders and when he walked he would drag his feet a little, “the way a bear drags his paws.”

A dream is a piece of your imagination that comes to life during your sleep or something that you want in the future, that you think is of a big importance to you, a dream is something you indulge in, to escape momentarily from life.

They all have a dream, in the case of George and Lennie, that something is to own a farm. They are not the first travelling ranch hands to conjure up images of their own land, or of being their own bosses. This dream is George and Lennie’s great American Dream, this is the idea that you can achieve anything if you have the mind and desire to do it.

George and Lennie start off walking down the road to get to the ranch. They decide to stay the night in the woods and they start to talk about their dream. George and Lennie’s dream is a simple one, they want land to call their own and Lennie wants to tend the rabbits. “‘Some day-we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs and-’”

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‘An live off the fatta the lan,’”

This shows how Lennie is like a big kid and how George is the parent telling the bedtime story to Lennie, the child. Lennie tells the bits that he knows like a child would do.

They work at ranches because they have no money, and to accomplish their dream they need to have enough money to buy the land. They have no money because of the depression and to a certain extent because of Lennie. George cannot get a reliable job and take care of Lennie at the same time. and because ...

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