Comparing The American Dream In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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Katie Ventresca Mrs. Shupp English 9-Honors 5 October 2015 The American Dream in Of Mice and Men Of Mice and Men, by American author John Steinbeck, is a novel set in California during the Great Depression. The story the lows of the Great Depression era, while profiling two companions, Lennie and George. The classic novel takes American ideals and puts them into the context of the time period. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck demonstrates how unattainable the American dream - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and property - truly was during the Great Depression. This is made apparent through the characters’ quests for ____. The pursuit of property, the idea that everyone has the ability to purchase property, has been a beacon to American…show more content…
Soon after meeting Lennie and George, Candy picks up on their yearning for the future, and jointly contributes money to help make the dream a reality for the threesome. Lennie, George, and Candy all use their shared dream of owning property to deal with the despondency of the time period. As the story evolves, the dream that Lennie and George once kept to themselves eventually involves Candy, whose contribution makes the dream more possible. Although the shared dream is completely real, it is not attainable. When Crooks, an African American stable buck working on the same property as Lennie, George, and Candy learns about the dream, he says, “‘Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’... 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 jus’ in their head’” (72). The Great Depression impressed upon the minds of Americans the impossibility of fulfilling their dreams. As Crooks notes, everybody dreams of a piece of land for themselves, but during the Great Depression, this really was not possible. People during the Great Depression soon learned that owning a piece of land was highly unlikely due to the instability of the nation’s
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