He has the money to help support the purchase of the farm. “Maybe if I give you guys my money, you’ll let me hoe in the garden even after I ain’t no good at it” (60). He hopes for Lennie and George to let him work with them even if he gets too old. Candy trusts George and Lennie to let him work for them. Candy is miserable at the farm where he works until he met George and Lennie.
Gary wants to break away from poverty and keep the next generation out of working in the fields or factories. The thought of having such a life like his parents made him scared and he overcame all of it as he explains in his book. Gary also, writes about the power television had on his siblings and on himself helps him to be where he is now. He is poet and enjoys life with his wife and
Dill’s imagination is wild as well. He tells enormous lies and conducts unlikely stories; he often tries to be some thing he isn’t. “ Having been bound in chains and left to die in the basement by his new father, who disliked him, and secretly kept alive on raw field peas by a passing farmer who heard his cries for help, Dill worked himself free by pulling the chains from the wall. Still in wrist manacles, he wandered two miles out of Meridian where he discovered a small animal show and was immediately engaged to wash the camel. He traveled with the show all over Mississippi until his infallible sense of direction told him he was in Abbott County, Alabama, just across the river from Maycomb.
George and Lennie lose themselves in the idea of the dream; their relationship is inspired by ideas of ' rabbits', 'puppies' and 'alfalfa'; “George says were gonna have rabbits and a berry patch.” (Section 4, Page 83) This dream becomes impossible due to the death of Lennie. George is passionate about the dream, it is his life fulfillment to own his own property: ‘to live of the land’, but George sacrifices this by killing Lennie. George knows the inevitable future of Lennie and places Lennie in front of the dream. This act of friendship is definitive and he sacrifices all his dreams and hopes to save his best friend from heartbreak. George also goes against his moral code, George does not want fall into the ranch worker stereotype.
To save himself Crooks tries to explain to Lennie how it feels to be lonely, ‘Maybe you can see now, you got George. You know he’s goin’ to come back.’ This monologue is important Crooks is lonely in many ways: he is crippled so he is isolated from society, he is black and he is intelligent all of which set him apart from anyone else on the ranch. At this point animal language is used again for Lennie. Crooks discusses how life would be for Lennie if he was on his own, ‘They’ll tie you up with a collar, like a dog.’ Words like ‘growled’ also show how Lennie’s temperament changes. Please note that animal language is used the most during tense scenes.
Is George justified in killing Lennie? John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is a short novel about two friends, quick-witted George and dim-witted Lennie. (ef fram kemur af hverju þeir eru samtvinnaðir væri got að koma því að) They are both gauchos moving together from ranch to ranch looking for work but Lennie’s screwups cause them to be on the run consistently. They have a dream about a little farm of their own where they can reap their own harvest and keep rabbits and that’s what keeps them going in a hard life, although it is pretty obvious these are just pipe dreams. The story happens mainly at a ranch nearby the Salinas River in the state of California.
Sartys constant feeling of despair and grief is sounded out through the limp of his father. Faulkner states, “the peace and joy, ebbing for an instant as he looked again at the stiff black back, the stiff and implacable limp of the figure which dwarfed by the house…” (Faulkner 149). This paints a vivid picture in Sarty’s mind of the evil traits with his father. In ‘The Myth of the “Barn-Burning”’, Volpe supports this idea by suggesting the Abner Snopes’s stiff foot symbolically relates to the cloven hoof of Satan. (Volpe 1484) Through out “Barn-Burning”, there are many descriptions geared towards the Satan-like qualities of Abner Snopes.
Once a fine sheepdog, useful in the ranch, Candy’s dog is now crippled by age, Candy’s sentimental attachment to the dog- his plea to Carlson that he let him live longer due to the fact that he raised it since it was a little puppy- means nothing at all on the ranch. Although Carlson promised to kill the dog painlessly, his insistence that the dog must die supports a cruel natured law that the strong will dispose of the weak. Candy identifies this lesson, for he fears that one day he will suffer the same feat as his dog, he realises that he is nearing an age when he will not be needed at the ranch subsequently no longer wanted. Lennie's Puppy is another symbol in which Steinbeck uses to portray that the strong will dispose of the weak. Lennie unintentionally kills the puppy: “You ain’t so little as mice.
Dr. Gerrit Kimsma also tells us about euthanasia fulfilling dreams Gerrit believes, “They can also focus on the things they really want to do, like taking a last trip, or making up a fight with someone in the family, or saying goodbye” (The Right to Die). I agree with Dr. Kimsma because when someone has a dream, it makes life easier for them. It puts them at ease if they accomplish that goal or dream before they die. In the novel, Lennie has a dream to tend the rabbits on their farm. Before George performs euthanasia he talks to Lennie by the Salinas River about how their life is going to be on their dream farm.
Utopia “The American Dream…will remain only our dream and never be our destiny” (Williamson1). This proves true in John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men in which the characters George, Lennie, Candy, and Crooks find retreat from their harsh life by the dream that one day they will buy a few acres of land on which they will grow their own food and have their own livestock. This idea completely entices the characters because the possibility of a free, tranquil life brings hope for the future, a light at the end of the long and dark tunnel. Throughout the novel Crooks, George, Lennie, and Candy imagine the farm as a place of freedom and security; however, their dream of utopia proves to be impossible to reach and through these characters, Steinbeck suggests that it is also impossible to reach in reality.