The American Dream
The idea of the “American Dream” is a major theme in Of Mice and Men. In the 1930’s during the Great Depression many suffered, and the hope of still achieving the "American Dream" gave people something worth working towards. Several times in the novel George describes to Lennie the plan of how they will own property someday. George repeats this story several times throughout the novel because it gives Lennie comfort. George says, "We'll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter, we'll just say the hell with goin' to work, and we'll build up a fire in the stove and set around an' listen to the rain comin ' down on the roof" (Steinbeck 15). Telling this story over and over gives George and Lennie something to work and live for. Lennie is also obsessed with being able to feed the rabbits when they finally get their own land; this will cause him to take desperate measures not letting anything destroy his opportunity , and not have George become mad at him. In Contemporary Literary Criticism, Joseph Fontenrose says, "And what George longed for in his dream of individual freedom was exactly what he deprecated in his dream of living with Lennie on a small ranch. He recited this dream too at the beginning and end of the story, and once in the middle; but only the first time it is given in its complete ritualistic form..." (6). By the way Lennie reacts to George when he explains the idea, the reader can tell this is not the first time that this plan had been discussed between the two. It gives them hope that someday they will never have to work again, and as Lennie would say, "Live off the fatta the lan'"(Steinbeck 14).