Of_Mice_and_Men_Essay

Kiki Robertson 24 September 20009 Period: 1 Assignment: Of Mice and Men, Major Essay #1 prompt #2 The big dream that George and Lennie always wanted In the book of Mice of Men by John Stienbeck, George and Lennie have a dream to get their own little place where they can live instead of on the farm in the bunkhouse. Lennie is always excited when he talks about getting their place they always wanted. In their dream they wanted to have a shack, alfalfa, apples, and a lot of other things. Lennie’s part of the dream is to tend all of the rabbits where they live. George knows that it is going to be hard for them to attain their dream. George and Lennie are prevented from attaining their dream because the society’s competitiveness to let guys travel together, Lennie’s inability to stay out of trouble, and George and Lennie’s inability to get all the money needed to buy their dream house. Society’s competitiveness does not let guys help each other, and this gets in the way of George and Lennie’s dream. For instance, Slim notes that “hardly any of the guys travel together, and go alone (39)”. It seems abnormal to Slim that George and Lennie travel together because he thinks that “maybe everyone in the world is scared of each other” (35) and that no one likes each other, so everyone just goes alone. Therefore, it is weird for George and Lennie to be together and this is also discouraged by society. In addition, to Slim’s thinking, the boss is also suspicious because George is always sticking up for Lennie. The boss notes that he “never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy” (22). Even though that mostly everyone goes alone, George and Lennie have a special bond that will bring them together. Lennie’s inability to keep himself out of trouble is also preventing them from attaining their dream. Specifically George notes that, “we got to sneak out and get out of the country” (11) and forcing them to have to move because of Lennie getting in to trouble. This is difficult for George because they have to keep moving so Lennie doesn’t get in more trouble. When Lennie keeps getting into trouble that means that they can never get the dream that they always wanted. Furthermore, Lennie notes to himself, “George is going to tell me I done a bad thing, please don’t tell, I done a bad thing” (91), when he accidently strangles Curley’s wife not knowing his own strength. By Lennie not knowing his own strength he doesn’t really know when he will kill something, so he is always going to get in trouble for something. George and Lennie’s inability to get all the money needed to get their dream house is an obstacle to attaining their dream. For example, George tells Candy “I got to think about that, we were always going to do it ourselves” (59) because Candy wanted to join so that they could have enough money to get their dream house. It seemed awkward for George and lennie because they would have never thought that someone would want to help pay for their house, and live with them. Secondly, George also mentions about Candy being a part of their dream “I’m going to write to them old people that own the place that we’ll take the house”(61) so that they can attain their dream, “send her one hundred dollars to bind her” (61). Sending the old people the money never really happened, so this obstacle was not overturned. George and Lennie are prevented from attaining their dream to have their own house. They are prevented from this because of Lennie getting him and George into trouble, forcing them to move cities. They have to move when Lennie doesn’t listen to what George tells him not to do. Also they are prevented because of the society’s competitiveness to not allow guys travel together. None of the other guys that they work with have someone to be with. And also, they do not having enough money to pay for the house is an obstacle. These are all obstacles in which are preventing George and Lennie from attaining their dream. George and Lennie cannot overcome these obstacles because Lennie cannot stay out of trouble and also Lennie has died, and the guys in their town will never travel with other guys to different farms to work with each other, like how George and Lennie did.