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The End of the American Dream
The “American Dream” is a masculine term. There are always some people say that Benjamin Franklin is the most typical American, because he is a “self-made man.” This concept separates him from his contemporariesand his ancestors. He did not owe anything, he did not have the responsibility for the future, and he created himself. In early America time, a noble was considered to be a girlish thing, but a real man can create anything without standby. If American men are self-made, obviously this country is also proud of the fact that it is a self-made country. But because of this excessively masculine feeling about the American Dream, there is also covert desolation. The dream of men is stronger and deeper than women’s, however, the men’s dream is also easier to be crushed. In the book Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck created several characters whose dreams died in the novel. Those dreams are not the cartoons in Disney’s world. They are about wealth, happiness, and a lot of freedom.
The American Dream is always about the thing people don’t have now. People desire it because they can see it, although they cannot touch it. George is one of the main characters in Of Mice and Men; he wants a small farm, a house that he and Lennie can live. The things he really wants are a home, a better life, and a job he can really work for himself. Compare George’s dream, Lennie’s dream is simple. Lennie just wants to stay with George and to pet some small animals. Lennie always says this to George, “Tell me----like you done before” (13) Telling the future is like a game between Lennie and George and they use this way to make their dream closer to them. The other example of person who has a dream is Curley’s wife. She is really a special character in Of Mice and Men. To be the only female on the ranch, her dream is to be a movie star. She tells Lennie about her story. “’Nother time I met a guy… He says he was gonna put me in the movies. Says I was a natural. Soon’s he got back to Hollywood he was gonna write to me about it” (88). Curley’s wife still remembers her dream even after she married Curley. That is why she keeps telling others the story.
Just as all of Steinbeck’s characters dream, so also do they suffer the deaths of those dreams. Both George and Lennie’s dream died when George uses the Luger aiming at Lennie’s head. Just before Lennie died, he still has those dreams, and he really thinks those dreams will come soon. “Lennie begged, ‘Le’s do it now. Le’s get that place now.’ ‘Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta’” (106). That is the most sad part in the book. George and Lennie can be seen as one individual; Lennie is part of George’s dream, or even the whole dream. George cannot makes his dream come true without Lennie. Although George always says he will have a better life, if he doesn’t have Lennie go with him. Curley’s wife’s dream died when she married Curley and moved to the ranch. But she still has the wish of her dream. Her death is both sad and a cause for rejoicing. Because she is not lonely any more, she also does not need to struggle in the huge difference between her dream and the reality. Another person who does not even have a dream is Carlson. Different people have different ways to live, maybe Carlson is more relaxed than others and has a happy life. But he is the one who is insensitive, and last paragraph in Of Mice and Men shows this. “Curley and Carlson looked after them. And Carlson said, ‘Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them two guys?’” (107).
Disillusionment means the disappearance of the hallucination. And hallucination means people cannot figure out whether they are true or not. Each single dream is sincere. But when all the dreams add together, even sometimes only two dreams add together, they change to lies. Lie is the symbol of this society, and the American Dream is the symbol of this society. In Steinbeck’s novel, people see those dreams. They also can see too much silence, time and the blanks in their minds. Those characters, they are not Hemingway, because they are neither firm nor confused, the thing that can make them firm or confused has been gone a long time. However, they are not pessimistic. They just hopeless like a hard rusty iron. They will refuse to believe any lie about hope and dream. They are close to the true from another side. Steinbeck showed such an irresistible world in Of Mice and Men. There is a sentence, the ending of The Great Gatsby, which is on Fitzgerald’s tombstone. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” |