It is a dream that is made more poignant because the farm work is so heavy and pay is spent easily in the town.
This dream is important for George and Lennie because for them the dream is a motivator. This is what is driving them through the time of hardship. “Someday—we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres.”(p.49)
Candy chooses to join this dream because he doesn’t get much from just swamping at the ranch, “The old swamper” (p.19) as they called him. He wasn’t much of a tough guy because whilst working on the ranch he had lost his right-hand, “I lost my hand here on this ranch” (p.62). He thinks that if he joins George and Lennie, they could work together to earn money for the house. This would mean that he could spend the rest of his life in a bit of peace because he has no family and no where to go. To persuade George and Lennie he even offered to give them a hand in a few things, “I could cook and tend the chickens and hoe the garden some.”(p.62)
Then there is Crooks, the thing that makes Crooks eager about joining the dream is that he’s a coloured man, and no one talks to a coloured person that much because at that time people were still very racist. He was treated as a 2nd class citizen, an outsider, which is why he had a room to himself. No one came into his room very much, “Guys don’t come into a coloured man’s room very much” (p.79). All this leads to Crooks being one of the loneliest and loneliness is one of the biggest factors, or reasons as it were, in convincing him to join the dream. But instead he ends up withdrawing from the dream because he knows that that dream will never come true, “You guys is just kiddin’ yourself. You’ll talk about it a hell of a lot, but you won’t get no land.” (p.79).
Crooks say that George and Lennie will never get the land, “Never a god dam one of ‘em gets it” (p.78). Crooks has been on that ranch for a while and has seen many people like George and Lennie, “I seen hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches with their brindle on their back an’ that same damn things in their heads.” (p.78). After having experienced all that before, this is the reason that makes him change his mind and is the reason he ends up withdrawing.
Curley’s wife dreams because she doesn’t like Curley “I don’t like Curley” (p.94), and she is not happy with her marriage. She dreams about working in movies and live the way she wants, which is like a Hollywood superstar. “Nother time I met a guy, an’ he was in pitchers. He says he was gonna put me in the movies. Says I was a natural. Soon’s he got back to Hollywood he was gonna write to me about it.” (p.93). this is what she was once told and something that was very special to her. But, like everything else in the novel, this was also something that went wrong and never happened. She holds her mother responsible for this, as her mother thought of this as a bad thing. She thinks her mother stole the letter, “I never got that letter” , “I always thought my ol’ lady stole it… I ast her if she stole it, too, an’ she says no.”(93-94).
There was no other woman on the ranch which made her lonely and all by herself and she didn’t had anyone she could talk to either “I can’t talk to nobody but Curley” (p.92)
When reality is bad people dream. They dream about having a nice place or maybe land of their own, where they could stay and enjoy. But, even for that, they have to wait months or years, until they have enough money to buy their own place, have enough money for them to eat and buy clothing for themselves. For George and Lennie the dream is a motivator, it is what is helping them all to get through the times of hardship.
Throughout the day, all the men work hard. The men working at the ranch have no one, they are completely lonely, they no family or friends. The only family they have are the other men at the ranch, which isn’t the type of family they want but they have no choice. They all work hard all day long and some of them go and spend all their weekly wages on drinking and sleeping with prostitutes in the town. But then there are others like George and Lennie who save up and want to buy a place of their own. They have something to look forward to, a dream that motivates them, almost every night they think of it and it makes them feel happy. It’s a reward, as it were, for working hard the whole day. Their dream is what adds meaning to their life, otherwise they would have a lonely and meaningless life.
By,
Rabiya Bari 10JM
Reference:
‘Of Mice and Men’
John Steinbeck
England
New Windmill series 1965.
