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The American Dream is what many strive for throughout their life. It represents the feeling of freedom and independence. For many, their American Dream is unattainable in the sense that, for them, it is mostly just a dream rather than something that can become a reality. A lot of the time, people focus on working hard and earning a lot of money. This way of life proves to make people more miserable instead of making them feel fulfilled as the American Dream should.
In the end, people’s American Dreams fail, and they just move on and start the process over again. In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck shows that although the American Dream represents freedom and having control over one’s life, it will never be attainable to those who keep moving around and starting over.
The failure of the American Dream can be seen by readers when Crooks recalls every other guy who had a Dream, but it never came true.
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“ She followed all my directions. It was really easy to contact her and respond very fast as well. ”
While Crooks and Lennie are talking, Lennie brings up the American Dream that he shares with George. Crooks interrupts Lennie and says, “‘I seen hundreds of men come by on the road an’ that same damn thing in their heads. They come, an’ they quit an’ go on’”. In this example, many workers before George and Lennie had American Dreams. Every last one of them wanted their American Dream to be possible, and they thought that if they worked and earned a lot of money, they could do it.
Those workers had a plan of how it was all going to happen just like George and Lennie did, but their American Dreams never came true. They eventually quit their jobs and went on to find more work on different ranches because of the failure to work and save money, since it was so easy to spend it. Given that many of them spent their money on a variety of things other than putting it towards their American Dream, they were left with regret, and the feeling of despair because they never obtained their American Dream. In other words, it was common for workers to come and go with the hopeful thought of obtaining their American Dream but never achieve it.
Another way readers can see the failure of the American Dream is when George kills Lennie, which was the person he shared an American Dream with. When George finds Lennie before the others, he decides that he needs to kill Lennie to put him out of his misery. He begins to talk to Lennie about their American Dream, and towards the end of their conversation, “George raised the gun he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. This shows the end of Lennie’s American Dream which he was planning with George for a while. Lennie and George had planned to get a small piece of land to call their own. Because Lennie was obsessed with rabbits, the plan was to get alfalfa for the rabbits and Lennie would tend to them. This was quickly demolished when George put the trigger to the back of Lennie’s head and shot him. In this case, Lennie’s American Dream was not possible for him anymore since he was dead. After George killed Lennie he moved on with working. Overall, the American Dream that they both shared will never come true.
In conclusion, Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men American Dream demonstrates thatit is just a dream and for many impossible to obtain because many keep moving around and starting over. This idea is constantly portrayed by those who’s American Dream is impossible, and so they find other ways to work around it and start over again from the beginning. Providing that people focus on the important part of their American Dream and try to be as realistic as possible when creating one, they could easily achieve their American Dream without having to start the cycle over and over again.
Of Mice and Men American Dream and Plot. (2024, Feb 03). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/of-mice-and-men-american-dream-and-plot-essay
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