summary
- George and Lennie’s dream that Candy and Crooks later join in on is very important to the men because it represents freedom and having control over their own lives, which they do not have while moving around looking for work. It gets them out of the hardship that comes with being an itinerant worker
- Curley’s wife’s failed dream
- The end of the shared dream
Curley’s wife’s dream: ‘I coulda …………….. of myself’, ‘If I’d went ………………………… this, you bet’
‘I coulda made something of myself’, ‘If I’d went I wouldn’t be living like this, you bet’
- Her dream is grander than the men’s, but both are viewed as an escapism for life
- The golden age of Hollywood (when the cinema experienced great advancement in picture quality and sound)
George and Lennie’s dream: ‘We’d jus live there… We’d ……. there… We’d have our own place where ……………………………………………………… bunkhouse’ - George
‘We’d jus live there… We’d belong there… We’d have our own place where we belonged and not sleep in no bunkhouse’
- They hope for a place where they are non-reliant
- Comforting: as though more of a bedtime story than a plan
- Simplicity, that any life is better than the one they live
- The American Dream
Candy and Crooks’ involvement in the dream: ‘ I won’t have no place to go, an’ I can’t …………………. - Candy
‘If you guys …………………………………………… nothing - just his keep, why I’d come an’ …………….’ - Crooks
’ I won’t have no place to go, an’ I can’t get no more jobs’ - Candy
‘If you guys would want a hand to work for nothing - just his keep, why I’d come an’ lend a hand’ - Crooks
- Both men are so desperate for security that they want to be involved in the dream
- They want permanent safety and they see the dream as a way out of their nightmare
The end of the dream: ‘I think I knowed from the very first. I think ……………………. . He usta like to hear about it so much I …………………. .’ - George
Crooks was scornful. ‘every damn ………………………………………………… . An’ never a God damn ……………….. gets it.’
The end of the dream George said softly, ‘I think I knowed from the very first. I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would.’
Crooks was scornful. ‘every damn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it.’
- Reminds the reader of the futility of the dream and the unrealistic outcome
- The idea of the American Dream seemed so hopeless to an itinerant worker in the Great Depression
