Of Mice And Men Utopia Analysis

Have you ever wondered if all these dreams that you have will ever come true, or are they just to get our hopes up? In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, the theme of utopia or an ideal place is spread upon the entire book. For instance, one of the main characters Lennie has always dreamed of a utopia with his best friend George that they would live in a barn and he would be able to tend the rabbits. Another main character in the book is Curley’s wife who always wanted to be an actress, but her utopia never came true. Overall, our dreams and personal Utopias are often nothing but unrealistic fairy tales we use to maintain some sense of hope in our lives.
One example of how utopias and dreams are nothing but unrealistic is Lennie,

and his utopia of having a barn with a chicken, a cow, and rabbits which Lennie would tend. Lennie has had this dream ever since he was living with George, and he lived for it. As George states in the book, “we’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter, we’ll just say the hell with goin’ to work, and we’ll build up a fire in the stove and set around it an’ listen to the rain comin’ down on the roof—Nuts!” (Page 14-15). This quote is important because this is the utopia Lennie has always dreamed about, with George and nothing will change his mind about this. Yet in the end none of this happened, instead he was killed thinking about the ranch as it states on page 106, “’you…an’ me. Ever’ body gonna be nice to you. Ain’t gonna be no more trouble. Nobody gonna hurt nobody nor steal from ‘em’…. And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger.” This proves that even George hesitated before killing Lennie, but he knew it was the right thing to do. Also, Lennie always wanted to pet furry animals, and used to pet mice because they were fluffy. Once George and Lennie got to the ranch George got him a puppy that was fluffy, and Lennie wanted to take extremely good care of it so he can tend the rabbits, just like he dreamed about. One day Lennie went to the ranch and ended up killing it, his dreams were crushed, “’God damn you. Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice.’” (Page 85). This is significant because it shows that Lennie’s dream of taking good care of the puppy didn’t end up happening. Life isn’t perfect, and everything doesn’t happen the way you want it to, just like Lennie. As one can see, this is one way how Lennie’s utopias and his dreams never came true and were just to keep him happy.
An alternate example of how dreams are just to keep people living is Curley’s wife, and her dream of being an actress. Ever since she was little, she had a dream of being an actress but her mother never believed o