If we want to know Steinbeck’s view of the American dream a big clue is in the name of the book “of mice and men” this relates to a poem once about a field mouse that spends all year getting his food stocks ready for winter and then a big combine harvester comes along and destroys everything. The poem goes “The best laid schemes of mice and men aft gang agley” which means “the best laid schemes of mice and men often go astray”
This is already suggesting that the plans in the book or the dreams or even the American dream will never be realised and will always go wrong no matter how well it’s planned out. This also shows Steinbeck’s pessimistic view to life.
He also shows this in many ways like how in the book everyone is lonely and even the place where they are “Soledad” which actually means “loneliness” in Spanish and how there is so much discrimination in the book against characters which makes you think that Steinbeck probably always thought that that was the nature of humans and how it can never be changed. We see lots of status and power and people bullying others, and just basically the bad times they lived in.
Nature of human existence:
1. People will always discriminate others
Whether because of what colour they are, if they have mental disabilities, and even women. This is shown in characters like Lennie who is made fun of by even people like George just because he has mental disabilities. (Like in the bit where George tells slim how he once told Lennie to jump in a lake and how Lennie nearly drowned). Colour discrimination can be be shown in Crooks and the way he is isolated from everyone else and how even Curley’s wife has a higher status than him. And lastly women are discriminated in the book, we see this in Curley’s wife, first of all, she doesn’t even have a name and she is also called many rude names like “rat trap”, “jail bait” and other things. Another way in which we see how women are discriminated is in the cat houses where women are used like sex-objects and have to be prostitutes to have money to live.
2. Status and power
People always will want to feel superior to someone else. Strong dominates over the weak and the weak dominate the weaker. We see this also many times even in school where most people who are bullied will then go and bully someone else who is weaker. We see this in many ways like how George dominates over Lennie. How Curley dominates over his wife and then she bullies Lennie and crooks and candy.
And we even see crooks exerting power over Lennie in how he disrespects his dream and says that many men say that but never manage do it.
3. Loneliness
Like I said “Soledad” means loneliness, but there are also many other ways we see loneliness in the book. Like for example how crooks are always lonely and his sole dream is to have someone with him and to be accepted and maybe go into the bunkhouse and play a little rummy with the guys. Curley's wife is lonely even though she has him because she doesn’t actually like him and she wants to run away. Many migrant workers travel alone and are said to be the loneliest men in the world which is why George and Lennie travelling together makes it look weird to the boss and slim and other people. Steinbeck shows all his characters really suffering from profound loneliness. We even see it in small things like the way George plays solitaire with cards which is a one man game.
4. Dreams
In Lennie and Georges dream it really just stands out for independence so they can live of the fatta the land and so that if anyone came they could kick them out if they didn’t like them. It also shows self sufficiency and how they grow what they eat and don’t need to rely on anyone else. Control over the life’s and how they own everything and don’t need to work under someone else. Respect and how it’s their land and they rule over it. All this is basically what the American dream is, untarnished happiness!
Also Steinbeck shows it will never be realised because crooks dream of fitting in with everyone else was never realised and he didn’t get to help out on the farm. Or candies dream to actually keep working and not just live like a poor person on the streets when he becomes useless and old. Or even Curley’s wife’s dream where she wanted to be in the pictures and and in all the glitz and stars up there in Hollywood.
5. Foreshadowing
Steinbeck finally shows the dream will never be realised by foreshadowing it, We anticipate that Lennie will kill Curley’s wife because we just know that it would happen sooner or later, the day would come, there would always be a “Curley's wife” that would temp Lennie and then he would kill her. The foreshadowing starts when they come to the brush and George tells Lennie to hide in the brush if anything happened because he is half expecting something bad to happen. It also adds to when they run out of weed and something like that or worse would happen soon. The killing of the poor defenceless puppy by Lennie also is foreshadowing it by showing he still kills things by accident. The killing of candy’s dog is also a big factor since we hear candy tell George that he should have shot the dog himself which is foreshadowing the event where George even takes the same gun and in the same way he shoots Lennie in the back of the head just like when they killed candies dog.
Another big foreshadowing event is this trouble with Lennie and Curley because Curley hates big people and we know that eventually something bad will happen and it will bring trouble. Also in the way Curley’s wife is an obstacle to the dream because she’s so flirtatious towards Lennie and other people and since Lennie can’t fight back well she takes advantage of him.