Re: Of mice and men-radio&essay
How does ‘Of Mice and Men’ show the fragility of the American Dream?
Just some thoughts for you.
I think there is so much around for you about this book that, as always, the thing will be to find your own voice. I think the most important thing is to devise a really strong thesis at the outset. The topic question doesn’t dispute that the American dream is fragile, so I guess that’s your starting point and the ‘How’ are the techniques used or the language forms and features. The important thing is that you outline your own stance on this and stand squarely in it as you write. So, for instance, you might want to take a position like:
-Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, is about the power of a person’s dream for something better. A dream of this kind sustains and uplifts. It makes tolerable all kinds of hardships and makes bearable loneliness and sorrow. It is in this form, a cherished vision, that the ‘American dream’ is robust and life-enhancing. The fulfilment of dreams however, especially for the downtrodden, for the fringe-dwellers, for the dispossessed, is as fragile and intangible as a breeze.
That’s just off the top of my head and it may not be a position that you want to take but it’s taking the question and making a claim you can then write to. You could just as easily, if you wanted to, say that the American Dream is indeed fragile and is fact spurious and perpetrated by the wealthy to keep the poor working for them. You could say that Steinbeck depicts the inhumanity of letting a man dream of something that will never be his. I thing there’s evidence for both – I’m just saying – always have a point of view. Below is a quote from the same poem as the novels title and it really does allude to the emptiness and sorrow that results from having a dream of something that is beyond your reach.
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
Radio Interview
If you read the stuff above you’ll see that the beauty of a radio interview is that you can present both points of view. You need to make sure that you have a reasonably knowledgeable presenter so they can really contribute and you don’t waste your word limit with stuff like: “Oh really, so what else do you think”.
Obviously you should deal primarily with the theme of ‘the dream’ or whatever you want to call it, say, ‘idealism vs reality’. Then you can use both ‘characters’ to outline different ideas. Say your guest is called Lennie, then something like:
Lennie: Steinbeck knew the people he was writing about. As a young man he learned about migrant laborers, usually unmarried men recruited to work during harvest seasons, from his own experience as a worker on company-owned ranches. He deliberately chose to write about this previously ignored class of ranch workers. Lennie and George’s dream, then, has a sort of universal element. When Crook says of the hundreds of men “come by on the road”, that: “ … every damm one of ‘em is got a little piece of land in his head. And never a goddamn one of ‘em gets it”, it’s Steinbeck speaking of the plight of all of these workers.
Interviewer: So the reality of these men’s lives is stronger than their idealism? I mean doesn’t the dream die with Lennie? Would say that in the end, the dream is not only fragile, but futile?
Lennie: Well that’s certainly the great pathos of the novel isn’t it. These men are the disenfranchised. They are like mice in the maze of life – same old wheel, same old cage.
Interviewer: But isn’t it also possible that Steinbeck was wanting to convey the power of hope and love. Isn’t that what triumphs in the end? I mean the ‘dream’ does come true for Lennie. His last words are: “I can see it! Right over there! I can see it!”. The dream sustains him right ‘till the very end. Isn’t it the only thing that sustains Candy? Curley’s wife?
Lennie: Yes, but it’s a lie isn’t it? I mean George tells Candy: “I think I knowed it from the very first, I knowed we’d never do her”.
And so on – I don’t want to bore you but I guess that’s the thing you have to do – use what happens to characters – what they say – to back up ideas behind the themes.
Good Luck.
