Of Mice And Men American Dream Theme Essay Example

What is the American dream and is it achievable? According to the oxford languages the American dream is, “the idea by which equality of opportunity is available to any American, allowing the highest… goals to be achieved.” Also, today.yougov.com says that “54% of US adults think the American Dream is attainable.” So almost half of America thinks that they can’t successfully peruse the American dream. In the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and the story The Egg by Sherwood Anderson we see how George and Lennie and the family in The Egg try to achieve the American dream. 

In Of Mice and Men George and Lennie plan out their American dream which is to get their own ranch where they do not have to work for anyone, “We gonna get a little place… An’ you get to tend to the rabbits” (Steinbeck 105). George and Lennie worked from place to place to try and get their own place but like most American dreams their dreams were ruined. Lennie was always getting into trouble accidentally. When Lennie kills the boss’s son’s wife George was not able to get Lennie out of trouble this time and they did not get to pursue their dream. When Candy asks George, “You an’ me can get that little place, can’t we George?” (Steinbeck 94) and George does not respond they knew their dream of not having to work for rich men had become a failed plan. 

In The Egg we meet the family of Thomas Butterworth, and our protagonist is his son. Thomas starts out as a farm hand and meets his wife who has bigger dreams and makes him quit being a farm hand and become a chicken farmer. Our main character says the chicken farm, “turned out badly” (Anderson 1). Since they were not satisfied with the turn out of the chicken farm, they reached farther in their dreams of becoming successful and opened a restaurant. The restaurant was located by a railroad, and they stayed open nights for more people to come in but even with doing that they were not happy with themselves.  The father thought adding entertainment would help make more people come, but when the father was not good at entertaining it did not help much.  The father knows his dreams have failed and the sons says, “the problem remains unsolved in my mind … but another evidence of the complete and final triumph of the egg” (Anderson 6).

How is the book Of Mice and Men and the story The Egg similar? They are a like because they both try and fail at the American dream George and Lennie’s dream was to get their own, “little house and a couple acres… An’ live off the fatta the lan” (Steinbeck 8) and the family in The Egg’s dream changes from starting with, “ten acres of poor stony land” (Anderson 1) changing to them “[embarking] in the restaurant business” (Anderson 2) and when they are not satisfied with the restaurant the father tries to add in entertainment. In Of Mice and Men George and Lennie fail the American dream because Lennie kills Curley’s wife and Curley wants to kill Lennie and George kills Lennie before Curley can get a chance to save Lennie from suffrage. In The Egg the family fails at the American dream because they were too greedy and when they finally got something the got bored and wanted more which led them to failure. 

We know that the American dream is attainable but is hard to achieve. We do not want to be like Lennie and get ourselves in trouble to where we can not try to become successful anymore and for the family in The Egg, we do not want to become too greedy and not be satisfied with what we have because, George and Lennie’s dream was to basically have what the family in The Egg had when they had a chicken farm, but the family wanted more than that. The American dream is what we make it and the family had it in their hand’s multiple times, but they did not notice it and aspired for more. So, we should try to peruse the American dream but we have to stay positive and when we do become successful we except it and do not become too greedy and want to reach for more so we do not lose what we do have because we wanted more.