Dream on Dreamer

The American dream is ambiguous in definition: Many think a happy family, a successful job, a perfect home, fame, or money all contribute to it; but, in Nickel and Dimed and Of Mice and Men, the characters fail in all of the aforementioned. Their dreams--at a younger age, or in a different place, or in a different "life"--are crushed as they enter the work force. Instead, they try to survive through low wages, the rough time period economically, and the lack of freedom or safety in their determination to achieve their dreams, even in the best possible situation (Ehrenreich 10).

The working class, with Lennie and Holly, compromise a large sector of the American population, but rarely do they get the benefit of the doubt: at least not in the sense of mental aid. An opaque shuns the light--Medicare, mental institutions, and other quality aid--onto the largest group of working people in America. In Nickel and Dimed Ehrenreich goes undercover to prove her point on how to live life near minimum wage; but she quit once realizing it is too difficult to make ends meet while working three jobs. Lennie suffers the fate of human nature, but he may have not if he and George found a great job.

Of Mice and Men takes place during the Depression Era in the 1930's, where no one really believed in the American Dream and the land of opportunity had become the land of misfortune. Ehrenreich, in contemporary America, suffers the same economic misfortune as she fails from coast to coast. History has shown that jobs that are hard to find also do not have high wages, and both books depict the same here.

Safety and freedom are not always granted, either. Holly, once getting injured, must suffer huge pay cuts and harassment from her boss, while Lennie suffers the ultimate punishment of death. Crooks cannot find freedom anywhere: "'Cause I'm black. They play cards in there, but I can't play because I'm black" (Steinbeck 68). This is shown through Nickel and Dimed, and it is present throughout the world.

In Of Mice and Men, each character has their own vision of the American Dream. Crooks, as bitter as he was, would allow himself to dream of hoeing a patch on Lennie's farm one day. In Of Mice and Men, Lennie and George's version of the American Dream is to purchase a few acres of land that they can call their own: "An' live off the fatta the lan'. An' have rabbits. Go on, George! Tell about what we're gonna have in the cages and about the rain in the winter and the stove, and how thick the cream is on the milk like you can hardly cut it" (Steinbeck 14). Lennie and George want to own a humble home where they can work for themselves and be free of the persecution and scrutiny of society. Meanwhile, Ehrenreich simply wants to live in a different area of work in different places, and she cannot even do that with everything in her way.

Both of these stories