Of mice and men

Rodrigo Lemus
Dec/5/10
American Lit. 2º
Dreams
Have you ever thought about what pushes you in life in order to keep going forward even though it’s almost impossible to reach it? About the consequences that might happen if someone only thinks in reaching their goals? In John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men, Lennie and Georgeoften talk about each other’s dreams and how they are going to unify them by working hard to be able to get a piece of land for George and a lot of rabbits to tend for Lennie. As the characters develop throughout the novella, other dreams appear as a sign that everyone has a defined goal in the story. In the end, all dreams are crushed, and the characters are defeated by their circumstancesbecause of Lennie’s actions. Steinbeck implies that dreams are essential in life because these are what push us to keep going forward, but sometimes it is wrong to be obsessed with the things we want to reach because we might damage our peers and even ourselves.
First of all, having a goal worth living for creates and incredible feeling that pushes us and tells our conscience that we are able to doanything we propose to ourselves if we never give up. From the beginning of the book, its clear that George and Lennie are seeking something they think would be the best solution to all their problems they have face or will in the future. George is in search of a small piece of land in which he will be the owner and manager of all the crops that he harvests by himself as said in the novella “Wegonna get a little place” (Steinbeck 105) In this quote, we can manage to see that George isn´t searching an imposible dream by asking for a huge land. Instead, he places his feet on reality and asks what he knows he is capable of getting. On the other hand, Lennie is only interested in having furred, tiny, and inoffensive animals under his enormous, heavy hands. But before going to the place theywanted, first they needed to work at a ranch in order to get the money that they will use to reach their dream. George is confident and knows that he is about to reach his goal in some months but the only concern he has is Lennie not being able to control himself and hurt someone or destroy something. Lennie´s desires are obsessive; this is why George had to be careful because he could be blamedby the actions of Lennie and finish with his dream of getting a land for himself.
In addition, dreams don’t necessarily end where you always wanted to because they modify as time goes by for the better of for the worse. When George and Lennie arrive at the ranch, they both knew clearly what they wanted to achieve by working at the new place such as money in orderto be saved and used at a purchase of a small piece of land with rabbits. After they meet Candy and tell him about what they were in search off, he decides to join them and revive his unreachable dream that he once wanted. On the other hand, George was now closer to reaching his goal. Unfortunately, Lennies actions modify not only his dream but also his peer’s. His brutal attitude is what leavesall of the people in his surrounding without something to hope for. Someone who gets really affected by this is Candy since he was desperate of getting away from the ranch. He states to George “you an´me can go there an´live nice can´t we? (Steinbeck94) meaning that away from what happen with Curley´s wife and Lennie, he was modifying his dream and George´s by re-stating him that they had a “deal”but now without Lennie, hoping that George will accept it. Lennie’s lack of reasoning brings with him bad luck to anything that his hands touches, therefore he is responsible of the loss of everyone’s push in life although he didn’t_do_it_on_purpose.
Having a dream to make your life more interesting isn’t bad at all, but when someone gets obsessed in trying to reach it, the only thing that...