1016 steinbeck, John
finish the sentence by exclaiming, “And live off the
fatta the lan.” George’s imagined future, repeated
throughout the novel with added detail, is, of course,
a variation of a familiar theme, the American dream,
a cultural ideal so basic that even the slow-witted
Lennie can grasp its importance. More than a dream
of land or property or riches or even a house of one’s
own, George’s vision encompasses a broader range
of values—freedom, abundance, fairness, nature,
and companionship—that are universally desired by
the novel’s characters, even if they too often remain
tragically unfulfilled. Thus, Of Mice and Men is not
so much a novel about the failure of the American
dream as it is about its necessary redefinition. While
most typically expressed in terms of independence
and economic success, Steinbeck’s novel suggests
the deeper vision of America is, at least in part, com-
munal—the promise of community.
Lennie’s chorus of “and live off the fatta the land”
importantly illustrates one aspect of the American
dream that points beyond defining it simply as “suc-
cess.” America is a land of “fat,” of abundance; there
is enough to go around, enough to provide for all.
The land itself is not a Darwinian battleground dic-
tating a “survival of the fittest” social economics, but
fruitful enough that even the old, the crippled, and
the economically disenfranchised should not suffer
deprivation. George’s dream of his ideal homestead
can accommodate and even embrace marginalized
outcasts such as Crooks and Candy.
George and his fellow ranch hands express
another virtue, fairness, as they articulate their ver-
sion of the American dream. “I’d have my own little
place, an’ I’d be bringin’ in my own crops, ’stead of
doin’ all the work and not getting what comes up
outa the ground,” George tells Slim. Candy, too,
reflects on how little he has to show for a lifetime
of hard work and complains, “I planted crops for
damn near ever’body in this state, but they wasn’t
my crops, and when I harvested ’em, it wasn’t none
of my harvest.” Again, the version of the American
dream first articulated by George and later shared by
Candy and Crooks emphasizes economic justice and
cooperation rather than competition, the desire nei-
ther to exploit the labor of others nor to have one’s
own labor exploited. Without the profit motive, they
would not be slaves to the land, nor would the land
be subject to environmental exploitation. “It ain’t
enough land so we’d have to work too hard,” George
says. “Maybe six, seven hours a day.” There would be
no time clocks or work quotas. Independence would
mean the freedom to go fishing or take a trip into
town if there were no pressing chores. For George,
unlike the large growers’ associations who own and
control the valley, small would be beautiful.
Of Mice and Men also suggests an inherent
paradox in the American creed of “success.” The very
qualities that most ranch hands associate with pos-
sible economic advancement are those that would
divide them most from others in their community.
In the field or bunkhouse, it seems, a worker can
either be a “nice fella” or a “smart guy.” Discuss-
ing his itinerant existence with Slim, for example,
George blames himself for his marginal economic
status: “If I was bright, if I was a little bit smart, I’d
have my own little place.” Yet Slim argues, defend-
ing Lennie’s rightful place in the community, that
“a guy don’t need no sense to be a nice fella. Seems
to me sometimes it jes’ works the other way around.
Take a real smart guy and he ain’t hardly ever a nice
fella.” For George and Slim, individual success at the
expense of others is neither possible nor desirable.
In the end, Steinbeck’s migrants fail to achieve
their collective dream. Crooks had predicted as
much, at first mocking Lennie’s simplistic faith.
“Nobody ever gets to heaven, and nobody gets no
land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’
about it, but it’s jus’ in their head.” Yet, in suggesting
that the American dream is only achievable through
collective action, Of Mice and Men foreshadows the
themes Steinbeck will soon give fuller development
in his masterpiece, The graPeS of Wrath.
Michael ZeitlerFreedom in Of Mice and Men
The American ideal of freedom, celebrated as a
major component of the nation’s character and
its frontier inheritance, is not sentimentalized in
John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. It may not even
seem much like an ideal. By traditional definitions,
George, Lennie, and the novel’s other migrant farm
hands are free. Unchained by a mortgage, a salary, or
family commitments, they are creatures of the open
road, free to come or go as they please. Unhappy