The American Dream
Examples
Pages 56-58
"George, how long's it gonna be till we get that little place an' live on the fatta the lan'-an' rabbits?"
"I don' know," said George. "We gotta get a big stake together. I know a little place we can get cheap, but they ain't givin' it away."
Old Candy turned slowly over. His eyes were wide open. He watched George carefully.
Lennie said, "Tell about that place, George."
"I jus' tol' you, jus' las' night."
"Go on-tell again, George."
"Well, it's ten acres," said George. "Got a little win'mill. Got a little shack on it, an' a chicken run. Got a kitchen, orchard, cherries, apples, peaches, 'cots, nuts, got a few berries. They's a place for alfalfa and plenty water to flood it. They's a pig pen-"
"An' rabbits, George."
"No place for rabbits now, but I could easy build a few hutches and you could feed alfalfa to the rabbits."
"Damn right, I could," said Lennie. "You God damn right I could."
George's hands stopped working with the cards. His voice was growing warmer. "An' we could have a few pigs. I could build a smoke house like the one gran'pa had, an' when we kill a pig we can smoke the bacon and the hams, and make sausage an' all like that. An' when the salmon run up river we could catch a hundred of 'em an' salt 'em down or smoke 'em. We could have them for breakfast. They ain't nothing so nice as smoked salmon. When the fruit come in we could can it- and tomatoes, they're easy to can. Ever' Sunday we'd kill a chicken or a rabbit. Maybe we'd have a cow or a goat, and the cream is so God damn thick you got to cut it with a knife and take it out with a spoon."
Lennie watched him with wide eyes, and old Candy watched him too. Lennie said softly, "We could live offa the fatta the lan'."
"Sure," said George. "All kin's a vegetables in the garden, and if we want a little whisky we can sell a few eggs or something, or some milk. We'd jus' live there. We'd belong there. There wouldn't be no more runnin' round the country and gettin' fed by a Jap cook. No, sir, we'd have our own place where we belonged and not sleep in no bunk house."
"Tell me about the house, George," Lennie begged.
"Sure, we'd have a little house an' a room to ourself. Little fat iron stove, an' in the winter we'd keep a fire goin' in it. It ain't enough land so we'd have to work too hard. Maybe six, seven hours a day. We wouldn't have to buck no barley eleven hours a day. An' when we put in a crop, why, we'd be there to take the crop up. We'd know what come of our planting."
"An' rabbits," Lennie said eagerly. "An' I'd take care of 'em. Tell how I'd do that, George."
"Sure, you'd go out in the alfalfa patch an' you'd have a sack. You'd fill up the sack and bring it in an' put it in the rabbit cages."
"They'd nibble an' they'd nibble," said Lennie, "the way they do. I seen 'em."
"Ever' six weeks or so," George continued, "them does would throw a litter so we'd have plenty rabbits to eat an' to sell. An' we'd keep a few pigeons to go flyin' around the win'mill like they done when I was a kid." He looked raptly at the wall over Lennie's head. "An' it'd be our own, an' nobody could can us. If we don't like a guy we can say, 'Get the hell out,' and by God he's got to do it. An' if a fren' come along, why we'd have an extra bunk, an' we'd say, 'Why don't you spen' the night?' an' by God he would. We'd have a setter dog and a couple stripe cats, but you gotta watch out them cats don't get the little rabbits."
Lennie breathed hard. "You jus' let 'em try to get the rabbits. I'll break their God damn necks. I'll... I'll smash 'em with a stick." He subsided, grumbling to himself, threatening the future cats which might dare to disturb the future rabbits.
George sat entranced with his own picture.
This part of the story is first of all showing what George's and Lennie's dreams are, but also demonstrates how nothing is more important to a person than accomplishing their dream. A beautiful description like this seems too good to be true, and the rest of the book is dedicated to prove that it is just that.
Pages 73-74
Gradually Lennie's interest came around to what was being said. "George says we're gonna have alfalfa for the rabbits."
"What rabbits?"
"We're gonna have rabbits an' a berry patch."
"You're nuts."
"We are too. You ast George."
"You're nuts." Crooks was scornful. "I seen hunderds of men come by on the road an' on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an' that same damn thing in their heads. Hunderds of them. They come, an' they quit an' go on; an' 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. Just like heaven. Ever'body wants a little piece of lan'. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It's just in their head. They're all the time talkin' about it, but it's jus' in their head."
Here, Steinbeck clearly states the point he is trying to make with the story. Crooks may seem too cynical, but the end of the book proves him right, and by extension Steinbeck right. He is saying that dreams are just dreams, and will never be truly obtained. 'Land' is representative of any dream, and it is implied that reaching one's dream is the same as going to heaven. However, as Crooks states, nobody ever gets to heaven.
Pages 88-89
And then her words tumbled out in a passion of communication, as though she hurried before her listener could be taken away. "I lived right in Salinas," she said. "Come there when I was a kid. Well, a show come through, an' I met one of the actors. He says I could go with that show. But my ol' lady wouldn' let me. She says because I was on'y fifteen. But the guy says I coulda. If I'd went, I wouldn't be livin' like this, you bet."
Lennie stroked the pup back and forth. "We gonna have a little place- an' rabbits," he explained.
She went on with her story quickly, before she should be interrupted. "'Nother time I met a guy, an' he was in pitchers. Went out to the Riverside Dance Palace with him. He says he was gonna put me in the movies. Says I was a natural. Soon's he got back to Hollywood he was gonna write to me about it." She looked closely at Lennie to see whether she was impressing him. "I never got that letter," she said. "I always thought my ol' lady stole it. Well, I wasn't gonna stay no place where I couldn't get nowhere or make something of myself, an' where they stole your letters. I ast her if she stole it, too, an' she says no. So I married Curley. Met him out to the Riverside Dance Palace that same night." She demanded, "You listenin'?"
"Me? Sure."
"Well, I ain't told this to nobody before. Maybe I ought'n to. I don' like Curley. He ain't a nice fella." And because she had confided in him, she moved closer to Lennie and sat beside him. "Coulda been in the movies, an' had nice clothes- all of them nice clothes like they wear. An' I coulda sat in them big hotels, an' had pitchers took of me. When they had them previews I coulda went to them, an' spoke in the radio, an' it wouldn'ta cost me a cent because I was in the pitcher. An' all them nice clothes like they wear. Because this guy says I was a natural." She looked up at Lennie, and she made a small grand gesture with her arm and hand to show that she could act. The fingers trailed after her leading wrist, and her little finger stuck out grandly from the rest.
This dialogue shows that even the one of the closest things this book has to an antagonist has a dream that will never come true as well. The fact that Steinbeck doesn't want us to like Curley's Wife says that even though nobody will ever reach their dream, that's not what's important. What is important is how we let that affect us as a person. If everyone became bitter after discovering their dreams are impossible, then the world would be an impossible place to live in.
Pages 105-106
Lennie said, "Tell how it's gonna be."
George had been listening to the distant sounds. For a moment he was business-like. "Looks acrost the river, Lennie an' I'll tell you so you can almost see it."
Lennie turned his head and looked off across the pool and up the darkening slopes of the Gabilans. "We gonna get a little place," George began. He reached in his side pocket and brought out Carlson's Luger; he snapped off the safety, and the hand and gun lay on the ground behind Lennie's back. He looked at the back of Lennie's head, at the place where the spine and skull were joined.
A man's voice called from up the river, and another man answered.
"Go on," said Lennie.
George raised the gun and his hand shook, and he dropped his hand to the ground again.
"Go on," said Lennie. "How's it gonna be. We gonna get a little place."
"We'll have a cow," said George. "An' we'll have maybe a pig an' chickens... an' down the flat we'll have a... little piece alfalfa-"
"For the rabbits," Lennie shouted.
"For the rabbits," George repeated.
"And I get to tend the rabbits."
"An' you get to tend the rabbits."
Lennie giggled with happiness. "An' live on the fatta the lan'."
"Yes."
Lennie turned his head.
"No, Lennie. Look down there acrost the river, like you can almost see the place."
Lennie obeyed him. George looked down at the gun.
There were crashing footsteps in the brush now. George turned and looked toward them.
"Go on, George. When we gonna do it?"
"Gonna do it soon."
"Me an' you."
"You... an' me. Ever'body gonna be nice to you. Ain't gonna be no more trouble. Nobody gonna hurt nobody nor steal from 'em."
Lennie said, "I thought you was mad at me, George."
"No," said George. "No, Lennie. I ain't mad. I never been mad, an' I ain't now. That's a thing I want ya to know."
The voices came close now. George raised the gun and listened to the voices.
Lennie begged, "Le's do it now. Le's get that place now."
"Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta."
And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie's head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the and, and he lay without quivering.
The ending of the book is the nail in the coffin, the final strike delivered by Steinbeck to show us that nobody will ever obtain their idealized dream. The reader has seen this coming for a while now, yet has been hoping that Lennie will live so that he and George can live out their dream. This, however, can't happen. Steinbeck laid the book out in a way that almost made for dramatic irony: First, he told us the dreams George and Lennie had, but then foreshadowed Lennie's death. Then he made the dream seem like it might be obtainable when Candy decided to help George and Lennie out. In fact, one could even argue that Steinbeck's intention was to make the readers' dream that George and Lennie win in the end, and then crush it along with George's and Lennie's dreams at the end of the book. Overall, the reason the ending is so heartbreaking is because it highlighted the futility of the entire book.
"George, how long's it gonna be till we get that little place an' live on the fatta the lan'-an' rabbits?"
"I don' know," said George. "We gotta get a big stake together. I know a little place we can get cheap, but they ain't givin' it away."
Old Candy turned slowly over. His eyes were wide open. He watched George carefully.
Lennie said, "Tell about that place, George."
"I jus' tol' you, jus' las' night."
"Go on-tell again, George."
"Well, it's ten acres," said George. "Got a little win'mill. Got a little shack on it, an' a chicken run. Got a kitchen, orchard, cherries, apples, peaches, 'cots, nuts, got a few berries. They's a place for alfalfa and plenty water to flood it. They's a pig pen-"
"An' rabbits, George."
"No place for rabbits now, but I could easy build a few hutches and you could feed alfalfa to the rabbits."
"Damn right, I could," said Lennie. "You God damn right I could."
George's hands stopped working with the cards. His voice was growing warmer. "An' we could have a few pigs. I could build a smoke house like the one gran'pa had, an' when we kill a pig we can smoke the bacon and the hams, and make sausage an' all like that. An' when the salmon run up river we could catch a hundred of 'em an' salt 'em down or smoke 'em. We could have them for breakfast. They ain't nothing so nice as smoked salmon. When the fruit come in we could can it- and tomatoes, they're easy to can. Ever' Sunday we'd kill a chicken or a rabbit. Maybe we'd have a cow or a goat, and the cream is so God damn thick you got to cut it with a knife and take it out with a spoon."
Lennie watched him with wide eyes, and old Candy watched him too. Lennie said softly, "We could live offa the fatta the lan'."
"Sure," said George. "All kin's a vegetables in the garden, and if we want a little whisky we can sell a few eggs or something, or some milk. We'd jus' live there. We'd belong there. There wouldn't be no more runnin' round the country and gettin' fed by a Jap cook. No, sir, we'd have our own place where we belonged and not sleep in no bunk house."
"Tell me about the house, George," Lennie begged.
"Sure, we'd have a little house an' a room to ourself. Little fat iron stove, an' in the winter we'd keep a fire goin' in it. It ain't enough land so we'd have to work too hard. Maybe six, seven hours a day. We wouldn't have to buck no barley eleven hours a day. An' when we put in a crop, why, we'd be there to take the crop up. We'd know what come of our planting."
"An' rabbits," Lennie said eagerly. "An' I'd take care of 'em. Tell how I'd do that, George."
"Sure, you'd go out in the alfalfa patch an' you'd have a sack. You'd fill up the sack and bring it in an' put it in the rabbit cages."
"They'd nibble an' they'd nibble," said Lennie, "the way they do. I seen 'em."
"Ever' six weeks or so," George continued, "them does would throw a litter so we'd have plenty rabbits to eat an' to sell. An' we'd keep a few pigeons to go flyin' around the win'mill like they done when I was a kid." He looked raptly at the wall over Lennie's head. "An' it'd be our own, an' nobody could can us. If we don't like a guy we can say, 'Get the hell out,' and by God he's got to do it. An' if a fren' come along, why we'd have an extra bunk, an' we'd say, 'Why don't you spen' the night?' an' by God he would. We'd have a setter dog and a couple stripe cats, but you gotta watch out them cats don't get the little rabbits."
Lennie breathed hard. "You jus' let 'em try to get the rabbits. I'll break their God damn necks. I'll... I'll smash 'em with a stick." He subsided, grumbling to himself, threatening the future cats which might dare to disturb the future rabbits.
George sat entranced with his own picture.
This part of the story is first of all showing what George's and Lennie's dreams are, but also demonstrates how nothing is more important to a person than accomplishing their dream. A beautiful description like this seems too good to be true, and the rest of the book is dedicated to prove that it is just that.
Pages 73-74
Gradually Lennie's interest came around to what was being said. "George says we're gonna have alfalfa for the rabbits."
"What rabbits?"
"We're gonna have rabbits an' a berry patch."
"You're nuts."
"We are too. You ast George."
"You're nuts." Crooks was scornful. "I seen hunderds of men come by on the road an' on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an' that same damn thing in their heads. Hunderds of them. They come, an' they quit an' go on; an' 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. Just like heaven. Ever'body wants a little piece of lan'. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It's just in their head. They're all the time talkin' about it, but it's jus' in their head."
Here, Steinbeck clearly states the point he is trying to make with the story. Crooks may seem too cynical, but the end of the book proves him right, and by extension Steinbeck right. He is saying that dreams are just dreams, and will never be truly obtained. 'Land' is representative of any dream, and it is implied that reaching one's dream is the same as going to heaven. However, as Crooks states, nobody ever gets to heaven.
Pages 88-89
And then her words tumbled out in a passion of communication, as though she hurried before her listener could be taken away. "I lived right in Salinas," she said. "Come there when I was a kid. Well, a show come through, an' I met one of the actors. He says I could go with that show. But my ol' lady wouldn' let me. She says because I was on'y fifteen. But the guy says I coulda. If I'd went, I wouldn't be livin' like this, you bet."
Lennie stroked the pup back and forth. "We gonna have a little place- an' rabbits," he explained.
She went on with her story quickly, before she should be interrupted. "'Nother time I met a guy, an' he was in pitchers. Went out to the Riverside Dance Palace with him. He says he was gonna put me in the movies. Says I was a natural. Soon's he got back to Hollywood he was gonna write to me about it." She looked closely at Lennie to see whether she was impressing him. "I never got that letter," she said. "I always thought my ol' lady stole it. Well, I wasn't gonna stay no place where I couldn't get nowhere or make something of myself, an' where they stole your letters. I ast her if she stole it, too, an' she says no. So I married Curley. Met him out to the Riverside Dance Palace that same night." She demanded, "You listenin'?"
"Me? Sure."
"Well, I ain't told this to nobody before. Maybe I ought'n to. I don' like Curley. He ain't a nice fella." And because she had confided in him, she moved closer to Lennie and sat beside him. "Coulda been in the movies, an' had nice clothes- all of them nice clothes like they wear. An' I coulda sat in them big hotels, an' had pitchers took of me. When they had them previews I coulda went to them, an' spoke in the radio, an' it wouldn'ta cost me a cent because I was in the pitcher. An' all them nice clothes like they wear. Because this guy says I was a natural." She looked up at Lennie, and she made a small grand gesture with her arm and hand to show that she could act. The fingers trailed after her leading wrist, and her little finger stuck out grandly from the rest.
This dialogue shows that even the one of the closest things this book has to an antagonist has a dream that will never come true as well. The fact that Steinbeck doesn't want us to like Curley's Wife says that even though nobody will ever reach their dream, that's not what's important. What is important is how we let that affect us as a person. If everyone became bitter after discovering their dreams are impossible, then the world would be an impossible place to live in.
Pages 105-106
Lennie said, "Tell how it's gonna be."
George had been listening to the distant sounds. For a moment he was business-like. "Looks acrost the river, Lennie an' I'll tell you so you can almost see it."
Lennie turned his head and looked off across the pool and up the darkening slopes of the Gabilans. "We gonna get a little place," George began. He reached in his side pocket and brought out Carlson's Luger; he snapped off the safety, and the hand and gun lay on the ground behind Lennie's back. He looked at the back of Lennie's head, at the place where the spine and skull were joined.
A man's voice called from up the river, and another man answered.
"Go on," said Lennie.
George raised the gun and his hand shook, and he dropped his hand to the ground again.
"Go on," said Lennie. "How's it gonna be. We gonna get a little place."
"We'll have a cow," said George. "An' we'll have maybe a pig an' chickens... an' down the flat we'll have a... little piece alfalfa-"
"For the rabbits," Lennie shouted.
"For the rabbits," George repeated.
"And I get to tend the rabbits."
"An' you get to tend the rabbits."
Lennie giggled with happiness. "An' live on the fatta the lan'."
"Yes."
Lennie turned his head.
"No, Lennie. Look down there acrost the river, like you can almost see the place."
Lennie obeyed him. George looked down at the gun.
There were crashing footsteps in the brush now. George turned and looked toward them.
"Go on, George. When we gonna do it?"
"Gonna do it soon."
"Me an' you."
"You... an' me. Ever'body gonna be nice to you. Ain't gonna be no more trouble. Nobody gonna hurt nobody nor steal from 'em."
Lennie said, "I thought you was mad at me, George."
"No," said George. "No, Lennie. I ain't mad. I never been mad, an' I ain't now. That's a thing I want ya to know."
The voices came close now. George raised the gun and listened to the voices.
Lennie begged, "Le's do it now. Le's get that place now."
"Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta."
And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie's head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the and, and he lay without quivering.
The ending of the book is the nail in the coffin, the final strike delivered by Steinbeck to show us that nobody will ever obtain their idealized dream. The reader has seen this coming for a while now, yet has been hoping that Lennie will live so that he and George can live out their dream. This, however, can't happen. Steinbeck laid the book out in a way that almost made for dramatic irony: First, he told us the dreams George and Lennie had, but then foreshadowed Lennie's death. Then he made the dream seem like it might be obtainable when Candy decided to help George and Lennie out. In fact, one could even argue that Steinbeck's intention was to make the readers' dream that George and Lennie win in the end, and then crush it along with George's and Lennie's dreams at the end of the book. Overall, the reason the ending is so heartbreaking is because it highlighted the futility of the entire book.
Characters
George - To be free and independent
Lennie - To tend rabbits and not get in trouble
Candy - To not die alone
Carlson - To be comfortable where he is
Slim - To find happiness in overseeing the ranch
Curley - To be respected
Crooks - To be accepted
Curley's Wife - To have a life of grandeur
Lennie - To tend rabbits and not get in trouble
Candy - To not die alone
Carlson - To be comfortable where he is
Slim - To find happiness in overseeing the ranch
Curley - To be respected
Crooks - To be accepted
Curley's Wife - To have a life of grandeur