Of Mice and Men

How important are ‘dreams’ in the novel?

In the novel ‘Of Mice and Men’, the main theme that links the characters all together are their ambitions to for fill their dreams. If we look at the historic background of the time period that this novel was written, we can see that the American economy had reached a low point due to the stock market crash, people were jobless and very desperate.
In section 1 of the book we can see George and Lennie discussing their ‘dream’ of owning their own piece of land. This is possibly the most important chapter of the book because it sets the tempo of things to come, and as the story progresses we will be able to see that George and Lennie’s lives have become a circle. Lennie and George’s dream is to own their own piece of land to live and work there, where they can have cows, pigs, chicken and a vegetable patch with alfalfa and rabbits. “Ok. Some day we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs and....” “An’ live off the fatta the lan’” “we’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter, we’ll just say the hell with goin’ to work, and we’ll build up a fire in the stove and set around it an’ listen to the rain comin’ down on the roof”. This quote illustrates the dream they have about owning a piece of land and living independently on it. When Candy hears about this dream, he wants to become apart of it by offering his saving to help buy the land and, be able to work and live of the land with Lennie and George.
Lennie, George and candy’s dream is destroyed by Lennie’s ignorance and his strength. When Lennie is in a stressful situation, like in Weed when he wanted to pat the girls dress, and she screamed, and Lennie would not let go of her dress and, he got accused of attempted rape, Lennie automatically panics and he doesn’t know what to do. Lennie’s strength and ignorance ruins all three of their dreams when...