Having Read Of Mice Men Essay

What have you learnt about the life of a ranch worker in 1930’s America? The book Of Mice and Men is set in California, at the time of the Great Depression. The American stock market had collapsed, and left the country in a state of economic disarray. This affected the two main characters George and Lennie who have to work on ranches because there was a need for people to work on the land and not much work elsewhere. Georges dream is to own a farm or a ranch of his own so he could be his own boss and wouldn’t have to be pushed round by other ranch owners who he works for now. This is the American dream George and Lennie aren’t alone in their dream. He says to Lennie, â€Å"We’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Because of this dream George resents authority, when he first meets Curley (the ranch owners son) he spoke to him in an ‘insulting manner’ and refuses to give Curley a straight answer. The life of the ranchers is very hard, they works every day except Sunday and only gets fifty dollars a month. All week the farm workers would toil the land for the ranch owners and would be paid a tiny percentage of the profit. They were very lonely people, with only their colleagues at the ranch and the women at the local ‘cat house’ for company, no wife, children and no family. George recognizes this and I think this is why he travels with Lennie, George says, this makes them different from all the ranch workers who travel around on their own. George says to Lennie that â€Å"Guys like us who work on ranches are the loneliest guys in the world.† George thinks that when he fulfils his dream he wont be lonely any more, he maybe would ‘get a girl’ and he would be his own boss. George also dreams of a better place for Lennie who is mentally about 6 years old. George takes it on himself to look after Lennie and rescue him when he gets in trouble, which is very often. When Lennie had just ‘accidentally’ killed Curley’s wife whilst stroking her hair to hard in the barn, George decides he has to shoot Lennie. Just before he does he tells Lennie: â€Å"Ever’bodys gonna be nice to you. Ain’t gonna be no more trouble. Nobody gonna hurt anybody nor steal from ’em.† This is Georges dream for Lennie, that he would be better cared for and nobody would be horrible to him and he wouldn’t get into any more trouble. That people would take time to understand him like he did. George’s dream reflects the time the book is set at, because if that were now Lennie would be better cared for by social services and other organizations like that. Also George and the other ranch workers would have had better rights on the ranch, they would have either had less hours work or more pay for the work they did. George might have been able to get his dream for a ‘few acres’ and a ‘girl’ pigs, cows and rabbits. 1 Candy’s dream is to have security. Security in his job, that he wont be ‘canned’ because he’s getting too old, or because he’s useless, because he’s only got one hand, this normally wouldn’t affect someone now but in the time the book was set Candy’s chance of getting a job if he was sacked from the ranch would be minute. Because of this insecurity Candy is very scared of Curley and the boss. In the book when Candy first meets George he speaks nicely about the boss and said that at Christmas he gave them whisky. I think he lied to George about the boss in case George told the boss what he had said which would have been true but nasty. When the boss comes into the room Candy quickly makes up and excuse why he’s talking to George and Lennie and gets back to work. He did this because he doesn’t want to get in any trouble with the boss because the boss might sack him. Then Candy will have no job and will be too old to get another one and he cant retire and he doesn’t have any family to go to he’ll probably have to live on the streets. When Candy overhears about George’s dream Candy wants to go along and be involved to. Candy offers three hundred and fifty dollars to help George get his dream farm and so that Candy can leave the farm and look after himself, his attitude towards Curley, the ranch and Curley’s wife changes after this. When Curley is starting on Lennie, Candy quickly rushes to his defence’ â€Å"Glove fulla Vaseline,† he said disgustedly’ referring to the glove Curley wears on his hand full of Vaseline, to keep ‘soft’ for his wife. Candy is not scared of Curley and the boss anymore because if he gets sacked he can just move on to George’s dream farm. With Candy’s newfound confidence he starts sharing his views and sticking up for other people such as Crooks the black stable buck. Curley’s wife is verbally attacking Crooks, telling him how she can get him killed if she wanted too. Candy retaliates by saying, â€Å"If you was to do that, we’d tell†¦ We’d tell about you framing Crooks.† He sticks up for Crooks, which shows he wasn’t racist and that he also had a dream for a better society. Where is you have worked and are getting old you would have money, a pension, and that everyone is treated equally like him and Crooks. This shows that the book reflects the time its set because Candy would probably have a pension and wouldn’t have been able to get sacked without out a just cause. Crooks dream is to be treated like a human and be accepted. Because he’s black he’s always been bullied and picked on by the other people in the ranch. He is never allowed to go out with the other people in the ranch and has to stay in his own room in the barn, he hates everyone at the ranch because they treat him badly, he says to Lennie, â€Å"They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink. Well, I tell you, you all stink to me.† Because Crooks is so lonely he reads a lot, in his library he owns the book California Civil code 1905. I think he has this because he wants to find out the rights he has and if there is anything he can do to be accepted. While talking to Lennie, Crooks reminisces about his childhood; how his father owned a chicken ranch and the white children used to come and he would play with them, and how most of them didn’t care about the colour of his skin and that they were nice to him. How instead of sleeping alone as he does now (he recalls), he used to sleep with his two brothers: â€Å"They was always near me, always there. Used to sleep right in the same room, right in the same bed-all three.† He was happy in the past and dignified, because he wasn’t alone then and had been treated equally. 2 Curley’s dream is to become a champion boxer. He was in a boxing tournament and he got into the finals, he keeps the newspaper clippings. He hates big men because he’s short, he wants to be tall and big, I think he wants this because he wants people to be more scared of him. He’s always picking on the workers because they can’t fight back because they’ll get sacked. He seems to be obsessed by beating people up and ‘sorting them’ out. Curley’s wife tells George, Lennie and Candy what he says. â€Å"†One-Two,† he says. â€Å"Jus’ the ol’ one-two an’ he’ll go down.† In the whole novel we never hear Curley’s wife’s name, she is always referred to as ‘Curley’s wife’. This makes her sound like Curley’s property, like Curley’s shoes or Curley’s horse. It also says that maybe she doesn’t deserve one, that when she married Curley she got a name. This reflects on her dream of equal rights for women. She is a very lonely person; she has no one to talk to except the men on the ranch who don’t really listen to her. So to make them listen to her, or pretend to in most cases, she dresses provocatively to get attention. However Candy and Whit see her as a ‘tart’ and ‘jail-bait’ and she’s always giving the ‘eye’. Even Curly doesn’t notice her; he still goes out to the ‘cat houses’ with the other ranch workers, instead of staying with his wife. She seems to be hurt by this, she says. â€Å"Think I don’t know where they all went? Even Curley. I know where they all went.† Curley’s wife’s dream is to be a star. When she was young, she was asked to go on a show, but she says her mother wouldn’t let her. Film work was one of the few types of work you could get as a woman, it was every girls dream, but it was often only a scam to take advantage of young women. Curley’s wife remembers how a man in the ‘pitchers’ said he was going to write to her about being in the movies. But she says her mother stole the letter when it came, when really it didn’t come at all. When Lennie killed her Steinbeck says. â€Å"The meanness and†¦.. the ache for attention were all gone from her face.† This means that she didn’t have to try anymore and life wasn’t just one long struggle for recognition. She had been released and was now more beautiful and alive than ever. Maybe it also means that she would get the attention now, she would be known as the woman who got killed by a mad man. Steinbeck draws attention to the idea that there is more to the American dream than just having a place of your own. The characters have dreams of an equal society. George describes to Lennie, â€Å"The place no-one’s gonna hurt you.† This reminds me of heaven where people would understand, listen and accept other people’s right to a dignified and free life. Although we have more of a life like this now, that is very different from the inequality of the time of ‘Mice and Men’, we still have a long way to go to achieve Steinbeck’s dream.