Of Mice and Men Essay

In a country of promised wealth and happiness, we dream big. But in a time of great depression, dreams were being ripped and shredded in the hands of fate. In Of Mice and Men, a novel by John Steinbeck, George and Lennie face this truth devastatingly.
George’s dream, widely shared and easily classified as the American Dream, is to own a piece of land with Lennie. He yearned for it as something that would protect, sustain, and house them. “ ‘Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family…They ain’t got nothing to look ahead to’…’With us it’s not like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us.’ “ (13-14) However his dream “dries up” (Hughes) slowly as Lennie’s tendency of causing trouble becomes serious. His fate becomes lined with painful death or life in prison. While telling him the story if “How its gonna’ be”, George mercifully kills Lennie by a shot in the back of the head, ending his own dream but letting Lennie spiritually accomplish his. George’s dream cannot be realized because of Lennie. Lennie’s child-like tendencies but monster-like features progresses them into complications, leaving them jobless and unable to make money. “(1)You saw the fields laid bare and wasted,(2)And weary winter coming fast,(3) And cozy here beneath the blast, (4)You thought to dwell,(5) Till crash! The cruel plough past (6)Out through your cell.” (Burns) George and Lennie can be symbolically connected to the mouse in this verse of To A Mouse. In stanza 1, the fields laid bare and wasted is a foreshadow to the destruction of the mouse’s home. This can be compared to Curley’s wife, who George knew was going to be trouble. Stanzas 2-4 relates to George and Lennie’s decision to stay at the ranch anyways because they needed the money. And the last stanzas 5-6 can depict the consequences of their actions, which leads to lennie’s death, and George’s spiritual death due to a lost dream.
Lennie’s dream is to be able to tend to the rabbits and be with George, as promised by George. But “The best laid schemes of mice and men Go often askew, And leaves un nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy” (Burns) Lennie’s dream “explodes” (Hughes) into a irreversible catastrophe when he kills Curley’s wife. As Slim explained “You hadda, George. I swear you hadda.” (107) Lennie’s dream, as well as life could not be spared.
Together, George and Lennie dreamt big, but could not control the spine-chilling twists of fate that they encountered. Lennie could not have planned on killing Curley’s wife and George could not have planned on killing Lennie. While trying to fight for obtaining their dream, their schemes of making their dream come true went askew, as they soon realized that all they could plan for is for their plans to go wrong.