Essay About The American Dream In Of Mice And Men

Was the American Dream really designed for everyone? The American Dream was known as something everyone aspired to. In the novel Of Mice and Men, author John Steinbeck sets the book in California, near the Soledad River. Steinbeck uses several characters as a way to spark different perspectives in the novel. One of the main characters, Lennie, is known to have a mental disability by the reader. One of the main roles he shows is presenting the conflict in the novel. Because Lennie is known to cause all the trouble, most of the conflict in the novel derives from him. However, Lennie is also the source of happiness in the novel. He keeps the hope in everyone’s heart. When Slim asked George what Lennie did in Weed, he said “‘Course Lennie’s a
Because Candy is old, and physical disabled, he cannot do as much as others. When Candy describes his circumstances to George he says “Jus’ as soon as I can’t swamp out no bunkhouses they’ll put me on the county” (60). He is saying how he will be thrown away as soon as he cannot fulfill his job. Candy is shown to have two “disabilities”: his age, and his amputated hand. Because of these impairments he seen as less able. Steinbeck uses this type of character in the novel to give insight to how obtaining the so called American Dream was like for older citizens living in the United States. Overall, Steinbeck uses these characters as a way to show what getting the American Dream was like for a person who was not white, young, and physically/mentally able to do anything. This gives more of a reality of what the American Dream really was. It was not so easy in the first place, but it was especially hard for the people that did not fit its standard. People like Lennie, Crooks, and Candy were three types of people that was seen as outcasts and people that should not be in society. To conclude, The American Dream was designed for a specific face that had no physical and mental