Of Mice And Men Dreams | Junior Cycle

Studied for Junior Cycle English exam years 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030.

When you write about Of Mice and Men dreams, you are writing about one small farm. George and Lennie want a few acres, a little house, a cow, some pigs, and rabbits for Lennie to tend. They want to own it. They want to work for themselves instead of for a boss. It is not a fortune. It is a patch of land and the right to say what happens on it.

Where the dream shows up, chapter by chapter

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Chapter 1, George tells it at the pool. Lennie asks for the story before they sleep, and George tells it the way you tell a bedtime story. Lennie knows his own lines and joins in on cue. That tells you what the plan is at this stage. It is a comfort the two of them say out loud, not a plan with a date on it.

Chapter 3, Candy buys in. Candy overhears the plan from his bunk and offers his life savings. With his money the farm could be bought inside a month. The story suddenly has a price and a deadline.

Chapter 4, Crooks wants in for a moment. Crooks laughs at the plan first, because he has watched men carry it around for years. Then he listens to Candy talk about the land and asks whether he could come too. Minutes later Curley’s wife threatens him and he takes it all back.

Chapter 5, the dream dies in the barn. Curley’s wife is killed and Candy finds her. George does not wait for the search party to set out. He knows straight away that the farm is finished. Notice the timing. The dream dies before Lennie does.

Of Mice and Men dreams: the quotes that prove it

“a little house and a couple of acres”
George, telling the plan at the pool, in Chapter 1.

Quote this early in an answer on the theme. It shows how small the ambition is, which matters when you argue that even this much is out of reach.

“An’ live off the fatta the lan'”
Lennie, finishing the story he knows by heart, in Chapter 1.

Lennie mangles the phrase and it becomes shorthand for the whole plan. Use it to show the farm is a set of words to him, not a place he could find.

“They’ll can me purty soon.”
Candy, explaining his fear to George, in Chapter 3.

This is why the land is not greed. Candy expects to be sacked the day he cannot sweep out a bunkhouse.

“They looked at one another, amazed.”
Narrator, after Candy offers his savings, in Chapter 3.

The word amazed is the one to write about. They are shocked because they have said the plan for years without expecting it to happen.

“Everybody wants a little bit of land, not much.”
Candy, in Crooks’s room, in Chapter 4.

The clearest statement of what the land means: security, not money. Use it when a question asks what a character wants and why.

“Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land.”
Crooks, in his room after Lennie describes the farm, in Chapter 4.

Set this against George in Chapter 1 to show the novel arguing with itself.

“I wouldn’ want to go no place like that.”
Crooks, taking back his offer to join, in Chapter 4.

He asked to be part of it a page earlier. The retraction shows what hoping costs a man who gets threatened for stepping out of line.

“I think I know’d we’d never do her.”
George, sitting with Candy over the body, in Chapter 5.

George admits the farm was always a story. It lands harder from him than from Crooks, because George is the one who kept telling it.

The angle Steinbeck takes

The American Dream is the idea that hard work in America earns you land, a home and independence. You work, you save, you end up owning something and answering to nobody. It is the promise these men were raised on. John Steinbeck wrote the novel in the 1930s, when the Depression had thousands of men moving from ranch to ranch for wages.

His angle has two halves and you need both. The dream is what keeps the men going. The book never lets anyone reach it.

Look at who believes hardest. It is the men with the least chance. Candy is old and has lost a hand. Crooks is kept out of the bunkhouse because he is black. Curley’s wife wanted to be in the pictures and married Curley instead.

That does not make the dreaming pointless. The plan is the only thing separating George and Lennie from the men who work a month and spend it in a night. It gives them something to talk about that is not the next job.

How to use this in an answer

A studied novel is examined in Section C, Responding Imaginatively. Section C is worth 70 of the 180 marks. A question might ask about a moment that changed a character. It might ask about an aspect of a novel you found interesting, or a character you felt sorry for. This theme works for all three.

A Section C answer on Of Mice and Men dreams should argue one thing. The farm is not a plan. It is what the men use to stay hopeful in a life with no future in it.

Anchor that to four moments. The telling at the pool in Chapter 1. Candy’s money in Chapter 3, and the silence after it. Crooks asking to join in Chapter 4, then pulling out. George in the barn in Chapter 5, admitting he never believed it.

At Ordinary Level, use the same four moments and keep your quotes very short. Say who is speaking and what the moment shows. The same argument also works for a review or a personal response in your Collection of Student Texts for CBA2.

One common mistake

The usual mistake with Of Mice and Men dreams is retelling the plan. The answer lists the acres, the house, the cow, the pigs and the rabbits, then stops. That is summary. It says nothing about the men doing the telling.

The fix is simple. Every time you mention the farm, say what it is doing for the person talking about it. For Lennie it is rabbits and a promise that George will not leave. For Candy it is somewhere the county cannot send him. For Crooks it is a place where he would not be alone in a harness room. For George it is proof that he is not one more ranch hand who belongs nowhere. Same farm, four different needs.

Quick recall

1. What exactly is the dream?

A few acres with a little house, a cow, some pigs and rabbits. George and Lennie would own it and answer to no boss.

2. Who tells the dream and who asks for it?

George tells it. Lennie asks for it and joins in, because he knows his lines by heart.

3. What does Candy add in Chapter 3?

His life savings. His money would cover the farm inside a month, so the plan stops being a story.

4. Why does Candy want the land so badly?

He is old and has lost a hand. He expects to be sacked and put on the county. The land is the one place nobody could throw him off.

5. Why does Crooks ask to join, then take it back?

For a few minutes he lets himself hope. Then Curley’s wife reminds him how easily she could destroy him.

6. What does Crooks say about men and land?

He has watched hundreds of men carry the same plan and never get it. He tells Lennie the land only exists in their heads.

7. When does the dream actually die?

In the barn in Chapter 5, before Lennie is found. George tells Candy he knew from the very first that they would never do it.

Of Mice and Men: Dreams and the American Dream