Why do Dreams Play Such an Important Part in "Of Mice and Men"?

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Jason Duke                                                                             02/05/07

Why do Dreams Play Such an Important Part in “Of Mice and Men”?

Dreaming - Train of thoughts, images, or fancies passing through the mind during sleep; Conscious indulgence of fancy, reverie, thing of dream-like beauty, charm, goodness, etc.

As it is described above, a dream is something you indulge in, to escape momentarily from life.  This seems to be the context that John Steinbeck intended his characters in Of Mice and Men to dream in.  They are all craving for something – in the case of George and Lennie, that something is land.  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 similar to the Great American Dream, that you can achieve anything if you have the mind and desire to do it.  Dreams are simple things in some ways, yet amazingly complex in others.  Although we are not told this part of the story, imagine when George and Lennie first came up with their slice of the apple pie that is the Great American Dream. George was probably rambling on, as people seem to do around Lennie.  What was just a simple thing to George, something to while away another couple of minutes on the way to another ranch, became something of a fixation to Lennie.  After repeating it to Lennie as a bedtime story, maybe he eventually came to believe it himself.

 

George and Lennie’s dream is a simple one – they want land to call their own.  The feeling is summed up well by Candy:

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“Every body wants a bit of land, not much. Jus som’thin’ that was his.”

Crooks has also seen it all before:

“I seen guys nearly crazy with loneliness for land, but ever’ time a whore-house or a blackjack game took what it takes.”

George’s dream, although extremely similar to Lennie’s, is probably more detailed and complicated.  Lennie thinks as far as “tendin´ the rabbits”, but George has to worry about whether it would be possible to really “live off the fatta the lan´”, or would they starve?

Lennie, with his child-like mentality, believes whatever ...

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