The Impossibility of the American Dream Through Steinbeck: Shows that the American Dream is unattainable through John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. 4 pgs long, double spaced.

The Impossibility of the American trance Through Steinbeck:America has brood with to represent ideals such as wealth, happiness, and freedom. Immigrants travel to America in search of the American fantasy, constructed of these hopes, although the majority of foreigners and natives a identical never come apart it. Various American novelists comprehend this unachievable desire and interrogation its depths in books that know now be mown(prenominal)tain into classics. Among these novels ar stool Steinbeck?s Of Mice and work force and the same reference?s The Grapes of exasperation. In the scratch line, cardinal men with the names Lennie and George float calcium in the 1930?s, hunting for ranches to work on. However, Lennie is ment on the wholey trouble and always provokes trouble, ride the two companions to become fugitives until the next countrified occupation. The American Dream motivates the two men; their version be a fall with crops and rabbits, until George reluctantly shoots and kills Lennie. In the latter novel, the Joad family is labored off their bolt d avouch and into California in pursuit of work and in the long run their passel of cave in down in a white erect with oranges. The family full treatment efficiently and arduously, but remains in the miserable, poverty-stricken distinguish in which they began. In his novels Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath, lavatory Steinbeck exposes the American Dream as unattainable through his settings, symbolization, and characters. Steinbeck uses his settings to illuminate the phantasmagorical apprehension of the American Dream. Both novels occur in California in the 1930?s. More specifically, in Of Mice and Men, the story unfolds on a ranch, where any worker desires the American Dream, but n i get wind it. For instance, Curley?s wife, who aspires to be a movie star, is polish off and Candy, who wishes to own a furtherm with Lennie and George, is condemned to remain at th e ranch. The ranch is an revision for men,! who have aband oned their fancyings, to drudge through the week and accordingly stifle their pay on temporary pleasure. As George is exciting Lennie with their coming(prenominal) kinfolk and orbit, George describes men who work on ranches. He announces, ?They come to a ranch an? work up a spot and then they go inta town and blow their s polish off, and the first social occasion you know they?re poundin? their tail on some opposite ranch. They ain?t got nonhing to looking for forwards to? (13-14). despite the ranch?s employees? daily labor, all they have to look forward to is the next week?s supernumerary fleeting contentment. The ranch represents these men and reflects the impossibility of the American Dream, since all of its inhabitants dampen to capture it. In addition, the intricately detailed settings in The Grapes of Wrath suggest the inaccessibility of the stargaze. For example, Steinbeck describes a roadside camp, ? there was no order at the camp; bantam grey-headed tents, shacks, cars were staccato close to at random. The first hold was nondescript. The south einsteinium groyne was made of three sheets of rusty corrugated iron, the east besiege a square of moldy carpet tacked betwixt two boards, the north debate a strip of cover story and a strip of tattered canvas, and the west wall cardinal pieces of gunny sacking? and about the camp there hung a slovenly despair? (241). This precise portrayal provokes an misgiving of the vast gap between reality and the American dream, since legion(predicate) hatful?s realities were dirty, uncomfortable camps such as the one depicted, not the comfortable lifestyle presented in the dream. Moreover, Steinbeck uses symbolization to draw a bead on the American Dream is unreachable. Curley?s wife, in Of Mice and Men, finds Lennie alone in the bacillus one night and confesses to him her broken lifelong dream of graceful a movie star. She explains, ?Well, a show came through, an? I me t one of the actors. He says I could go with that sho! w. But my ol? doll wouldn?t let me? If I?d went, I wouldn?t be livin? like this, you bet? (88). Curley?s name pure wife is not a character, but the embodiment of the unattainable American Dream. She is an brilliant example of the countless people who were pressure to settle for less than the perfection of the dream. In The Grapes of Wrath, Rose of Sharon gives brook to a stillborn handle. When Ruthie asks her mother where the baby is, Ma replies, ??They ain?t no baby. They never was no baby. We was wrong??(446). The baby symbolizes the hope, happiness, and fresh spring associated with the American Dream.

Consequently, when the baby go aways, all the ideals it suggests die with it, leaving the American Dream blatantly unattainable. Furthermore, Steinbeck uses his characters to explore the dream?s softness to be obtained. George and Lennie, in Of Mice and Men, desire a house on a farm, but when Lennie kills Curley?s wife, George understands the dream has disappeared. He admits to Candy, ??I think I knowed from the very first. I think I knowed we?d never do her. [Lennie] usta like to hear about it so much I got to mentation maybe we would? (94). regardless of George and Lennie?s money and effort, the friends do not reach their goal. Likewise, the Joads, in The Grapes of Wrath, hope to find work and settle down in California. Unfortunately, work is scarce and very some people are adequately prosperous to own land; the Joads face some(prenominal) strongships and difficulties. Steinbeck reveals the family as a flood invades their boxcar home and threatens to break the little property they own, ?The family hu ddled on the platforms, silent and fretful. The wate! r supply was half dozen inches deep in the car beforehand the flood circulate evenly over the embankment and moved into the like field on the other side? (450). The family?s low-pitched dreams, for they are far away from a white house with oranges although they struggled to succeed, assert that the American Dream is unfeasible. Even nowadays, people progress to for goals that are ultimately unachievable. Society tells children that they can do anything or be whatever they want to be. Unfortunately, this is unrealistic. Not everyone can be a notable actor, talented singer, or professional athletic supporter because all these careers take luck and skill as hearty as hard work. Aiming for unattainable goals only leaves the dreamer foil and dissatisfied and holds him or her back from obtaining more realistic dreams. In the novels Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath, ass Steinbeck realized the harm in forever aiming for these unhealthy desires and open(a) the impossibil ity of the American Dream. Bibliography:The Grapes of Wrath by John SteinbeckOf Mice and Men by John Steinbeck If you want to get a wax essay, order it on our website: BestEssayCheap.com

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