Of Mice and Men - Unfortunate Visions
Of Mice and Men - Unfortunate Visions
In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men George and Lennie were two men with a dream of one day living on their own farm and off the fat of the land. George said that Lennie could tend the rabbits on the farm and they would both live easy lives without having to work. Although they have this vision, the men are not able to achieve it. The untimely death of Lennie led George to the realization that their dream was never meant to come true. George and Lennie were doomed to fail from the beginning because of Lennie’s disabilities, their lack of financial ability, and George’s responsibility of Lennie.
Lennie’s disabilities are a factor in why the duo is destined to fail from the beginning. Although Lennie is a good and strong worker, he lacks an intellect, which often gets him into trouble. In Of Mice and Men, Lennie has a fascination for soft things such as the mice, the pups, and Curley’s wife’s hair. Because George is Lennie’s care keeper, George gets caught up in Lennie’s problems. Lennie has previously gotten into trouble with this obsession by touching a girl’s dress when they worked in Weed. This forced them to leave the job in Weed and move to get a new job because they needed the money if their dream was to come true.
The lack of financial ability on the part of George and Lennie tells of how the men are doomed to fail from the beginning. George and Lennie work all of the time and travel from farm to farm together. George tells Lennie of his dream that they can get a farm and work off the fat of the land to increase Lennie’s working effort. The jobs they take pay very minimally and George spends his money in the whorehouse like the rest of the farmhands. The rest of their money is used on miscellaneous fares such as bus trips and food. This runs the men into problems when they think about buying their dream house. Because they don’t have a lot of money to begin with, the men need to work constantly and put their vision aside for a while. Crooks said:
I seen hundreds 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. Hundreds of...