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

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While most believe that America is the “Promised Land,” today, forty eight million Americans live below the poverty rate (money.cnn.com). Our capitalist ideals make even the hardest workers unable to provide for their families. Through analyzing John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, we grasp what the struggle for the American Dream really is. George, Lennie, and Candy crafted a divine plan to obtain their own little patch of heaven, where they would “live on the fatta the lan” (Steinbeck 56). However, through subtle events, and terrible predicaments forced upon the characters by external forces, their search for the American Dream became the reality of an American Nightmare. George is the brains behind the search and desire for him and is colleague…show more content…
This leaves him unable to live his dream, until he partners with George and Lennie. George would have been able to provide for Candy and Lennie while Candy could have used his funds to make their imagination an actuality. Nonetheless, Lennie crushes the dream, conceding it in exchange for an endless nightmare. Candy, realizing his unfortunate reality, says to the decimated body of Curley’s Wife: You God damn tramp. You done it, di’n’t you? I s’pose you’re glad. Ever’body knowed you’d mess things up. You wasn’t no good. You ain’t no good now, you lousy tart. I could of hoed in the garden and washed the dishes for them guys. (Steinbeck 95-96) Even without George and Lennie, Candy would have still been stuck on the ranch. In all, Candy’s pathway to the American Dream became an endless cycle of what the lower class is. The contest for triumph in the American Society either becomes an American Dream, or an American Nightmare. The American Nightmare is, in the words of Crooks, a pessimistic worker on the ranch: They come an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn one of em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it. (Steinbeck
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