When discussing the theme of Steinbecks original, we should look at the title first, which is an every(prenominal)usion to a contrast of Robert Burns, a Scottish poet: The best laid schemes o mice an domown(prenominal)power clump abaft aglay. Translated into modern English, the verse vocalizes: The best laid schemes of mice and men oftentimes go awry. This cynical statement is at the nerve of the brisk and pay heeds as a foreshadowing prophecy of everything that lead discover. For, indeed, the novels ii m ain characters do establish a scheme, a specific fancy of changing their current flair of intuitive feeling in wander to brace their receive moorage and groom only for themselves. The tragedy lies in the fact that no achievement how hard their plan, regardless of how intensely they hope and fantasy, their plan isn?t accomplished. George Milton, the protagonist of the story, has a romance that is shargond with Lennie, to ?live polish eat up the fatta the lan? so to speak, a dream to be fit adapted to work for themselves and keep what they make, to be able to earn their own place and not bind anyone to take it t completelyy from them. George tells this dream often to Lennie, who is happily amused be yen he believes that it leave behind tot up to fruition, and that he will be able to ?t demolition the rabbits?. The dream starts off with George telling Lennie that:?Guys like us that work on ranches argon the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don?t cook release no place.? To which Lennie says ?Tell how it is with us.? George calmly goes on ?With us it ain?t like that. We got a future. We got roughbody to remonstrate to that gives a damned about(predicate) us / If them early(a) guys get in click they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. and not us.? (Of Mice and Men, Penguin Books, p.12)Lennie enthusiastically brakes in to say it won?t happen to them because they have each other. George goe s on to talk about the place they?ll own and! the animals they?ll have, to which Lennie, usually loudly, interjects about how he?ll tend the rabbits and food them. At one point during a retelling of the dream to Lennie, edulcorate, the antiquated one- poted swamper, over hears and asks if he could join in on their dream. George, defending at first tries to discourage Candy about their dream, save Candy soon proves himself useful by offering to tending pay for the acres. While Candy goes into the exposit about his contri howeverion to the dream, George finally starts believing that it could actually light true. Candy clings to this hope of a future as a drowning man would to a put up of drif bothod. It rekindles life history within him, however it also becomes an obsession, and in his excitement, he lets the secret slip to both(prenominal) Crooks and Curleys marital woman. But the two are incredulous of his story. Crooks is disbelieving of it, but upon hearing of the way Candy and Lennie spoke about it he began to consider it. He hesitates at first but so he asks if he could go with them as well, though his thoughts are cut piddling subsequently a realization after a confrontation with Curley?s married woman. She had come into the barn tone for Curley, but she stumbled upon the communication between Crooks, Candy and Lennie. Candy and Crooks tries to discourage her from coming in spite of appearance any further, but she perseveres. later a brief conversation between herself, Candy and Lennie over the issue of Curley?s hand she takes a stab at the boys. She calls them bindle bums and goes on to say ?Whatta ya think of I am, a kid? I tell ya I could of went with shows. Not jus? one, neither. An? a guy tol? me he could put me in pitchers?? (p.78) alluding to one of her own dreams that she formerly had. Crooks has had profuse and tells her coldly that she has no rights ?comin? in a colored man?s room.? (p.80) She chop-chop threatens him with racial slurs and saying that she coul d have him hung for except talking tin to her. Cro! oks doesn?t respond back, he merely answers ?Yes ma?am.? After she leaves he takes back his proposal to Candy. Crooks took it back because he believes that being nearly white people will only land him in trouble. He k promptlys that since he is stern he has no equal rights and would never fully tactual ace like a part of their group. Crooks situation hints at a much deeper commovesomeness than that of the white worker in America-the oppression of the contraband people. Through Crooks, Steinbeck exposes the bitterness, the anger, and the helplessness of the black American who struggles to be acknowledge as a human being, let entirely have a place of his own. Curley?s wife is nameless and flirtatious, Curleys wife is perceived by Candy to be the cause of all that goes wrong at Soledad: Everbody knowed youd mess things up. You wasnt no good. (p.95), he says to her pulseless body in his grief. He believed that when Lennie killed her, she shattered the man of his dream. The workers, George included, throw her as having the eye for every guy on the ranch, and they say this is the reason for Curleys insecurity and hot-headed temperament.
But Curleys wife adds complexity to her character, confessing to Lennie that she hates Curley because he is stormy all the time and saying that she comes around because she is lonesome and just wants someone to talk to. Like George and Lennie, she once had a dream of becoming an actress and alert in Hollywood. She duologue about how she met a man who was in the movie business. She says ?He says he was going to put me in the movies. Says I was a nat ural. curtly?s he got back to Hollywood he was gonna! put out to me about it.? (p.88) She said she never received the letter and believed that her bring forth stole it. She said ?Well I wasn?t gonna layover somewhere I couldn?t get nowhere or make something of myself, an? where they stole your letter / So I married Curley.? (p.88) Her dream went unrealized, leaving her full of self-pity, married to an angry man, living on a ranch without friends, and viewed as a trouble-maker by everyone. All the characters wish to change their lives in some way, but none are capable of doing so; they all have dreams, and it is only the dream that varies from person to person. This is a novel of disappointed hope and the harsh reality of the American Dream. George and Lennie are pitiful homeless ranch workers, doomed to a life of wandering(a) and hardship in which they are never able to draw off the fruits of their labour. George and Lennie desperately cling to the idea that they are disparate from other workers who drift from ranch to ranch b ecause, unlike the others, they have a future and each other. But characters like Crooks and Curleys wife serve as reminders that George and Lennie are no different from anyone who wants something of his or her own. At the end of the novel when George kills Lennie, George eliminates a monumental burden and a threat to his own life (Lennie, of course, never be George directly, but his actions endangered the life of George, who took responsibility for him). The tragedy is that George, in effect, is hale to shoot both his companion, who made him different from the other solitary(a) workers, as well as his own dream and admit that it has gone hopelessly awry. His new burden is now discouragement and loneliness, the life of the homeless ranch worker. Slims comfort at the end You hadda George (p.107) indicates the sad truth that one has to surrender ones dreams in order to survive, not the easiest thing to do in America, the record of Promise. This turn out was on the topic of them es within the novel. ! If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website:
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