Monday, January 13, 2020

Discuss Steinbeck’s presentation of The American dream in Of Mice And Men Essay

George and lennie want to recreate happier time â€Å"I could build a smoke house like the one grandpa had† this shows they want to recreate there childhood when they were safe and cosy A kid of paradise with lots of food – a cosy life â€Å"When we kill a pig we can smoke the bacon and the hams and make sausages† So they can eat some rich fresh succulent meat whenever they want it Better working conditions – not getting canned not working if they didn’t want to â€Å"No one could can us an if we don’t Steinbeck’s language shows the dream won’t come true because he uses alliteration to slow down your reading and by the way curley’s wife neck clicks there is no more sound as if the universe came to a massive stand still As soon as he says â€Å"stop† the first time its like running into a brick wall as if its just like boom dead end no way out to late and no more American dreamland then followed by the second as if that was the rest of the wall boxing him in as to seal his fate as lennie says â€Å"i didn’t want to hurt you but george’ll be mad if you go yelling † and then as it dawns on him of what his actions done â€Å"I done a bad thing I done another bad thing † this leaving the reader feeling sorry for lennie as he is a bit simple as if in his head he is still a kid in a full grown mans body . And as Steinbeck writes the end of chapter five his words showing how distressed / depressed and scared for lennie candy is â€Å"poor bastard† and emphasizing how quiet the barn is as if death himself had walked and lingered in the darkened corners of the barn as the darkness appears in as if a symbolic sign of death hovering the ranch with his scythe waiting to collect his crop. Candy cry’s because when he finds curlys wife dead because he knows that it was lennie and that curly is going to kill lennie when he finds out he will chase down lennie like a hound chasing a rabbit homing in waiting for the death blow and after lennies gone so have George and candies dream and as this starts to hit him he starts to worry about his friends and there future . George talks to lennie about the dream before he shoots him so lennies calm and happy not distressed , panicky and depressed so his last moment is one of his favourite memories George decides to go and to shoot lennie so that he can make lennie happy and calm before he is executed rather than lennie upset and crying at the hand of curly just so that lennie can be happy and glad before he is shot which is really good it must take a lot of courage to shoot a friend It’s a shame really been as they nearly had the finance to buy there dream place with all the three of there money put together had enough to place the deal on the house Steinbeck shows that something will go wrong at the end as he got the title for this novel from a poem by the Scottish writer Mr. Robert burns the poem goes like this The best laid schemes o’ mice an men Gang aft agley An’ leare us nought but grief an’ pain For promised joy In other words the plans of mice and men often go ugly and leave nothing but grief and pain when it was promised to give us joy. The story is set back just after the cowboy/bandit era a time were movies were quite and woman were even more so Its set about two friends who travel together and stop off at ranches to do some work before they move on to earn enough money to support there American dream which is that when they have enough money to buy a ranch they saw for 600 American dollars and then they could live of the fat of the land and everything would be perfect â€Å"an if we didn’t like the guy we just say get out and wed have a spare room and if a friend came by we’d say why don’t you stay the night and by god he would† Steinbeck’s idea of the American dream is basically that the dream can only be reached by the wealthy and unavailable to the poor and dreamful

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