The American Dream In Ehrenreich's Of Mice And Men

Across the economically, ethnically, and socially diverse United States, millions of unlike Americans share the same desire to overcome the vast array of obstacles the modern day era presents in the hopes of becoming the ideal member of society. Looking back at multiple generations, evidence of this drive to succeed can be found in the roots of society’s progression. This omnipresent goal that motivates the population to build sustainable lives has become known as the American Dream. In John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men and Barbara Ehrenreich’s nonfiction piece Nickel and Dimed, the protagonists define the American Dream in contrasting yet similar ways in response to the time periods in the texts, each character striving to become independent.

Like Lennie and George, Barbara finds herself working but struggling to make money; however, the problem is not necessarily an overall instability of the economy, as during the Great Depression in Lennie and George’s time period, but an issue with wages. In fact, on page 199, Ehrenreich states, “Something is wrong, very wrong, when a single person in good health, a person who in addition possesses a working car, can barely support herself by the sweat of her brow. You don’t need a degree in economics to see that wages are too low and rents are too high” (Ehrenreich 199). While the issue of a lack of opportunity and resources is present in Of Mice and Men, Barbara and the people she encounters face this issue in relation to the modern-day era, where technology is more advanced and is a new factor in the obstacle of finding a job. For example, Barbara is fortunate enough to be able to use a car to find jobs and transport herself to them daily. However, a lack of a car stops many low-wage workers from being able to search for or get to a job. Ehrenreich describes why low-wage workers do not seek a higher-wage job due to a lack of cars, saying, “Part of the answer is that actual humans experience a little more ‘friction’ than marbles do, and the poorer they are, the more constrained their mobility usually is” (Ehrenreich 205). Unlike the

While money barriers and opportunity run as a common theme in both time periods, the state of the economy and the level of advancements in technology vary the topics. What remains incredibly common between the these two time periods, however, is the physical and mental toll the American Dream places on its pursuers, acting as major obstacles. For instance, the effects of the physical labor in Of Mice and Men on the farm mirrors the physical toll the cleaning jobs have on Barbara. Barbara sums up the toll this labor has on the body, even noting, “This form of exercise is totally asymmetrical, brutally repetitive, and as likely to destroy the musculoskeletal structure as to strengthen it” (Ehrenreich 90). The mental toll of pursuing the American Dream also wears on Barbara as she questions if such work will cause “repetitive injury of the spirit” (Ehrenreich 106) because of its physical hurt and degrading repetition. In Of Mice and Men, this mental toll is also very apparent. At the end of the text, when Curley’s wife is dead in the barn, Old Candy realizes his dream of owning land has died. In this particular case,