Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is a story that shows how the American Dream is never a reality for the characters within the story. The story takes place in Southern California where two men are on a journey to achieve their dream of one day owning their own land with “a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs…” (Steinbeck 14) The two men are named George and Lennie; both are enthusiastic about owning land of their own. George is described as “small and quick, dark of face with restless eyes and sharp, strong features. Every part of him was defined: small, strong hands, slender arms, a thin and bony nose.” (Steinbeck 2). George is very short-tempered, but he loves Lennie and makes sure Lennie is in good hands. Throughout the story, George’s goal is to keep Lennie safe from anything that is threatening. Lennie is almost the complete opposite of George. He is seen as “a huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders; and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws. His arms did not swing at his sides, but hung loosely” (Steinbeck Pg 2). Lennie has some mental problems, but he still has a big heart and loves George more than anything. George is always reminding Lennie about the farm, and what they are going to do on the farm. George also tells Lennie about how they are not like all of the other people with dreams of their own because “We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don’t have to sit in no bar room blowin’ in our jack jus’ because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us” (Steinbeck 14). He believes that he and Lennie are going to achieve their dream and be able to own a farm one day. In order to make money for their farm George and Lennie will work on a farm, and at the beginning of the story, that is where they are headed. On this farm they meet other people like themselves with dreams of their own, but those dreams never became a reality. One of the workers they meet is Candy, a man who is very nice to George and Lennie; Candy lets them stay at his house. Candy is a man with a missing hand who runs the sleeping quarters at the farm. Candy eventually overhears George talking to Lennie about the farm, and he wants to be a part of their plans. At first, George didn’t want to tell Candy about their plans until he hears that Candy has money. Candy said “I ain’t much good with on’y one hand. I lost my hand right here on this ranch. That’s why they give me a job swampin’. An’ they give me two hundred an’ fifty dollars ‘cause I los’ my hand. An’ I got fifty more saved up right in the bank, right now. Tha’s three hundred, and I got fifty more comin’ the end a the month.” (Steinbeck 59). After Candy told George and Lennie this, they got really excited and decided to let him be a part of their dream. At this point in the book, George and Lennie’s dream is beginning to stink like the rotting meat in Hughes’s poem. George and Lennie have planned their dream and they got a job to raise money for it. Now their dream is beginning to affect other people so much that those people want to be a part of it. Everything seems to be going in the right direction for George, Lennie and Candy to eventually be able to buy this piece of land. Later in the story, when George goes to town with all the men on the ranch, Lennie is left back at the ranch with Candy and Crooks, a crippled black stable hand. Crooks is also disabled just like Candy. Lennie goes in the barn to see if he can keep Crooks company while the men are gone. Lennie forgets about George telling him not to talk to anyone about the dream, and he tells Crooks all about the farm. When Crooks hears about George, Lennie and Candy’s dream, he tells Lennie that “[he had] seen hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thin in their heads. Hundreds of them. They come, an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn one of ‘em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s just in their head” (Steinbeck 74). Candy comes in to the barn to see if he could keep Crooks and Lennie company. When Candy comes in and finds out what Crooks and Lennie are talking about he reassures Crooks that they are closer then he was thinking to getting the piece of land. When Crooks hears this he starts to believe Candy, and he wants to be a part of the farm. Crooks said he will “come an’ lend a hand” (Steinbeck 76) to help the men on the farm once they purchase it. So George and Lennie’s dream is still rotting like the meat in Hughes’s poem and attracting more people to it from the ranch where all the characters work. The dream is almost a reality, but in the end something happens to stop the dream from coming true. Lennie is in the barn stroking his puppy that he got from Candy. Lennie, stroking it too hard, killed the puppy and fearing that George would be mad at him, he tries to hide the puppy. As he is doing so, Curley’s wife, the only female character on the farm, comes into the barn where she finds Lennie. George has warned Lennie about her, and he told him that she is dangerous because she is very flirtatious towards all the men at the ranch. She comes in and starts talking to Lennie about how she once had a dream to become an actress and that Hollywood wanted to make her one. She sees that Lennie is holding the puppy and finds out that he killed it by stroking it too hard. Lennie tells her that he loves feeling soft textures but he admits that it gets him into trouble. She reassures him by asking, “Well, who don’t? ... Ever’body likes that. I like to feel silk an’ velvet.” (Steinbeck 90). She allows him to stroke her hair but tells him “Don’t you muss it up” (Steinbeck 90). Lennie starts to stroke her hair and he likes the texture. He likes it so much that he doesn’t let go then Curley’s wife screams and Lennie gets scared. He shakes Curley’s wife until he breaks her neck. Then he realizes what he has done and remembers to go to the clearing where George tells Lennie to go if he ever gets into to trouble. Meanwhile everyone else on the ranch is playing horseshoes. Candy and George come into the barn looking for Lennie and find the body. George knows immediately that Lennie killed Curley’s wife. After all of the other members on the ranch discover that Curley’s wife is dead they become enraged. Curley is the most enraged because it was his wife, and he knows that Lennie was responsible. Curley tells everybody that he wants to find Lennie and kill him. This is when George and Candy realize that the dream is now impossible. George knows that if Lennie is found he will be killed and that the town won’t give him a fair trial in court. George also knows that Lennie is at the clearing because George told him to hide there if he was ever in any trouble. George goes of by himself to the clearing ahead of the other men from the ranch and finds Lennie there. George then forces himself to kill Lennie, so that Lennie will not suffer any harsh treatment he may have received if he was found alive. The dream looked like it was going to be successful, but it exploded and somebody was killed hindering the dream from coming true. Also the dream was shattered because one man had to kill his best friend in order to keep him protected from harm.
In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald the same tragedy happens to one man named Jay Gatsby, and he has a true American Dream and it is shattered at the end of the story. A main character named Nick Carraway, who happens to be Gatsby’s neighbor, narrates the story. Jay Gatsby is a character that is determined to achieve his American Dream, and he knows how it should be accomplished. Gatsby’s dream is to one day attain the love of his life Daisy Buchanan who is currently married. Daisy is Nick Carraway’s cousin. In this story, Gatsby is not introduced until the third chapter in the book. Many speculations are made in the first two chapters about who Gatsby really is. One person who believes they know is Tom Buchanan’s lover, Myrtle. Tom Buchanan is Daisy’s husband, and he has a lover besides Daisy named Myrtle. In the second chapter Tom takes Nick to Myrtle’s sister’s house where he and Myrtle always go when they are together. Catherine, who is Myrtle’s sister, tells Nick that she thinks that Gatsby is “a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm’s. That’s where all his money comes from.” (Fitzgerald 32) No one really knows who Gatsby is or what he does. When he is first introduced at one of his elaborate house parties, he is a shocking man. No one really knew what he would be like if they met him. Nick admits, “I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I’d got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care” (Fitzgerald 48). Nick is so surprised by Gatsby that he has no clue that it is he when they first meet. After Nick meets Gatsby, he begins to learn more about who Gatsby really is. Nick learns that Gatsby “[is] the son of some wealthy people in the middle west- all dead now. [He] was brought up in America but educated at Oxford… [His] family all died and [he] came into a good deal of money… After that [he] lived like a young rajah in all the capitals of Europe- Paris, Venice, Rome- collecting jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting big game, painting a little, things for [himself] and trying to forget something very sad that had happened to [him] long ago” (Fitzgerald 65-66) From Gatsby’s explanation, it can be seen that he was brought up in a wealthy community. The tragedy that Gatsby talks about is his American Dream. He once had a burning love for Daisy Buchannan when he was young and in the military, and he still does. This is very similar to the festering of the sore in Hughes’s poem because Gatsby is willing to do anything to impress Daisy and win her love back from Tom. According to Jordan Baker, Nick’s friend, when Gatsby first met Daisy she was “ just eighteen… and by far the most popular of all the young girls in Louisville. She dressed in white, and had a little white roadster, and all day long the telephone rang in her house and excited young officers from Camp Taylor demanded the privilege of monopolizing her that night” (Fitzgerald 74). Gatsby and Daisy were madly in love when they were younger, and then Gatsby had to leave for military purposes. When Gatsby left, Daisy married another man Tom Buchannan who has a lot of money. Daisy never really wanted to marry Tom, but she could not wait for Gatsby to return from his duties. When Gatsby learns that Daisy is marrying another man he becomes upset, but he still believes he can achieve her love. He buys a “house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald 78). Buying a house across the bay from Daisy is not the only move Gatsby makes in trying to win Daisy’s love back. He also asks Nick if he could invite her for tea at his house so that he can wander over and visit her. Nick agrees to invite Daisy for tea and she accepts. She goes over the next day and goes into Nick’s house. It is a rainy day and Gatsby is scared it will be ruined, but seeing Daisy, Gatsby comes over to Nick’s house and knocks on the door. When he comes in he greets Daisy and they have an awkward reunion inside of Nick’s living room. After they share a few awkward sentences with each other they start to become more comfortable with each other. They continue to talk “While the rain continued… like the murmur of their voices, rising and swelling a little now and then with gusts of emotion. But in the new silence [Nick] felt that silence had fallen within the house too” (Fitzgerald 88). After this meeting with Daisy, Gatsby invites her and Tom to one of his parties, and they come but she does not have a good time. After the party Gatsby is disappointed that Daisy did not have a good time and admits to Nick that he just wants everything to be like it was back in Louisville. Nick tries to tell Gatsby that he cannot reform the past but Gatsby stubbornly says he can do it with his money. Nick thinks about how Gatsby’s dream will never come true. “Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, [Nick] was reminded of something- an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that [Nick] had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in [his] mouth and [his] lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them that a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what [Nick] had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever” (Fitzgerald 111) Gatsby is also invited by Tom to come over to his house to be with him and Daisy. Gatsby joins them at their house and they decide to go to New York together because they are bored. Tom does not like the fact that Gatsby and Daisy are getting really close. Tom suggests that Daisy and Gatsby go in one car and that Nick, Jordan and he ride in another car. When they are in New York, Daisy confesses her true love for Tom and Gatsby is crushed. On the way back to Long Island, Daisy hits Myrtle who was running away from her house because she was unhappy with her life, and kills her. No one knew that Gatsby wasn’t driving the car, but everyone assumes that he was driving. This leads to Gatsby’s death ending his dream, as Myrtle’s husband murders Gatsby because he believes that Gatsby killed his wife. Gatsby’s dream explodes and does not come true. It sagged like a heavy load all throughout Gatsby’s life but he never was successful in achieving it.
Both Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby and George and Lennie from Of Mice and Men have their dreams crushed. According to Langston Hughes’s poem both of the dreams exploded and resulted in death. In both of these books the American Dream seems impossible because all of these men tried too hard to achieve their dreams. George and Lennie were very close to achieving their dream of one day owning a farm but ironically the farm where they worked at ruined the dream. Jay Gatsby’s dream was crushed because he thought he could accomplish his dreams through money. At one point in both of the stories each character believed that the American Dream was going to be successful. They all were forced to defer their dreams and they ended up being miserable and unhappy. From this poem and these two books we can learn that the American Dream is very difficult to achieve.
