In this essay, I am going to write about the social and historical

In this essay, I am going to write about the social and historical

context of Of Mice and Men, and how the dreams of certain people in

the ranch went wrong and ended in tragedy.

In this essay, I am going to write about the social and historical

context of 'Of Mice and Men', and how the dreams of certain people in

the ranch went wrong and ended in tragedy. Most of the characters in

'Of Mice and Men' admit, at one point or another, to dreaming of a

different life. Before her death, Curley's wife confesses her desire

to be a movie star. Crooks allows himself the for the fantasy of

hoeing a patch of garden on Lennie's farm one day, and Candy latches

on desperately to George's vision of owning a couple of acres.

John Steinbeck wrote this novel because he wanted people to realise

the consequences of the great American depression between 1930 and

1940. It showed how people interacted with each other and it showed

the misery of the economical depression and how poor and different

race people were treated. In 'Of Mice and Men' Steinbeck describes how

punishing and challenging the life of migrant farmers could be. Just

as George and Lennie dream of a better life on their own farm, these

farmers dreamed of finding a better life in their world. The state

where they lived promised a climate for a longer growing season and it

offered more opportunities to harvest crops. Despite these promises,

very few found it to be the land of opportunity and plenty of which

they dreamed.

George and Lennie are migrant American labourers. George protects his

friend from the insecure world and shares with him a dream of one day

settling down and farming their own land to live a better life. The

farm that George describes to Len...

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... why, even though he has reason to doubt George

and Lennie's talk about the farm that they want to own, Crooks cannot

help but ask if there might be room for him to come along and hoe in

the garden. However, his desires would never come true because of the

time he lived, a time where such dreams for him were impossible to

become a reality.

All of these dreams were typically American dreams where dreamers wish

for untarnished happiness, for the freedom to follow their own

desires. George and Lennie's dream of owning a farm, which would

enable them to sustain themselves, and, most important, offer them

protection from an inhospitable world, represents typically American

ideal. Their journey, which awakens George to the impossibility of

this dream, sadly proves that Crooks is right that such paradise of

freedom and safety are not to be found in this world.