Of Mice and Men
George and Lennie feel they are outcasts of society and sustain their hope with visions of owning their own farm and having freedom. George acknowledges that he and Lennie are lonesome when he says “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. [âÂ?¦] They don’t belong no place” (13). George and Lennie try to ease this lonesomeness by traveling together. However, George sometimes feels Lennie is a burden and responsibility, rather than a companion: “Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½God a’mighty, if I was alone I could live so easyâÂ?¦’ [âÂ?¦] Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½An’ whatta I gotâÂ?¦I got you!’ ” He rants at Lennie, shouting about how much easier life would be if Lennie was gone. Lennie replies, saying “If you don’ want me I can go off in the hills an’ find a cave. I can go away any time” (12). Lennie is goading George because he knows he eases George’s loneliness. George knows too, telling Lennie to stay. The two farmhands both now that they can face the world better together. The pair lives a migratory life and has been chased out of town several times. They endure the hardships of life and comfort themselves by describing in detail the visions of a little plot of land they hope to own themselves. It would be ten acres with a windmill, shack, kitchen, orchard, pig pen, rabbit hutch, and house. George would paint an enticing image of the farmhouse until he and Lennie “sat entranced with [the] picture” (58). For George and Lennie, the dream farm means security, where “there would be no more runnin’ round the country” (57). George and Lennie want to settle down and discard their lives as migrant farmhands. The vision of the farm gives George and Lennie hope and something to hope and work for and look forward to as well as shelter from the brutal world.
Candy sustains himself with George’s dream farm and envisions himself as a part of it. He is an aging handyman who says he worries “they’ll [the boss] can me purty soon” (60). Candy lost his left hand in an accident working on the ranch – he has been literally injured by the cruel world. Candy fears the fate that awaits anyone who outlives his usefulness – the same fate that his dog met. However, Candy distracts himself from this harsh world with George and Lennie’s farm vision and offers to pitch in all of his hard earned money. Candy has a desperate need to believe in a kinder world and his imagination is captured by an existence in which he wouldn’t “have to buck no barley eleven hours a day” (58). Candy is so tied up with this new vision that it revives hope in him. Candy thinks about the farm all the time – “Oh, George! I been figurin’ and figurin’ ” (83). Even after Lennie kills Curley’s wife, Candy desperately clings on to the dream farm, as evidenced when “Candy spoke his greatest fear. Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½You an’ me can get that little place, can’t we, George?’ ” (94). Candy’s greatest fear is no longer being fired from the ranch – it is that he and George will not be able to get the farm. Furthermore, he pleads with George to go and buy the farm as they had planned. Like Lennie and George, the dream farm means security for Candy; a place where he belonged. However, the farm also means independence for Candy. Candy wants a place where he doesn’t have any fear of being laid off. The dream farm has become the sole thing that nourishes Candy; when it is gone, he loses all hope.
Crooks is also an outcast from society, an extremely lonely crippled black farmhand embittered by the world. Crooks takes his name from his twisted back, the result of a vicious kick from a horse – Crooks, just like Candy, has been injured by the harsh world. Yet Crooks is not only physically injured – he is also socially abandoned due to his color. Crooks is hurt by this discrimination: “S’pose you couldn’t go into the bunk house and play rummy Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½cause you was black. How’d you like that?” (72). Due to this prejudice against him, Crooks is overwhelmingly lonely and angry at the world for shunning him due to his color. Crooks bitterly wonders why white men shun him, saying it “don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you” (72-3). Crook’s anger causes him to tell Lennie to go away, but eventually his desire for company wins over and he invites Lennie in. Crooks dreams that he can enjoy the same simple pleasures white men enjoy. He wants to be able to enter the bunkhouse and play cards with the men after dark. Crooks is really looking for a sense of belonging and speaks wistfully about his past, when he wasn’t the only black man on the farm. This is also why Crooks cannot help asking if they could make a place for him on the dream farm so he could “come an’ lend a hand” even though he doubts George, Candy, and Lennie will ever acquire the farm (76). Crooks asks for a place on the farm vision because he so desperately yearns for inclusion and belonging. Crooks eases his isolation through dreams of these sort of dreams, as well as visions of his happy childhood in which he truly belonged.
The brutal world George, Lennie, Candy, and Crooks live in and the lonely lives they lead seem to destroy whatever lingering hope they have for the better. These people cling on to an idealized vision as a coping mechanism to comfort themselves and sustain their miserable existences. For these characters in Of Mice and Men, visions are like havens – they are the reason these men can continue living.
