THE FAILURE OF AMERICAN DREAM AND ITS EFFECT ON SOME OF THE CHARACTERS ON STEINBECK’S OF MICE AND MEN

This paper entitled The Failure of American Dream and Its Effect on Some of the Characters on Steinbeck‟s Of Mice and Men. The writer chooses Of Mice and Men because it is a short novel written by John Steinbeck in 1937 during the Great Depression Era. This novel depicts the life of working class in California, where many of previous farm workers sought job. The novel portrays the American dream during that era. This paper aims to find the American Dream found on the novel and analyze how the failure of the American dream affect some the characters. The method used in this research is qualitative descriptive. The theory applies in this research is American dream theory by Jim Cullen which deal with American Dream based on chronological order. The writer uses objective approach in analyzing the data. The conclusion from this paper is that there are three kinds of American dreams found in the novel. First is the dream of equality which is portrayed by Crooks character. Second is the dream of home ownership depicted by George and Candy‟s characters. The last is the dream of personal fulfillment portrayed by Curley‟s wife and Lennie‟s character. The next problem regarding on how the American dream failure affect the character is that because each character has their own motive in achieving the dream; when the motivation is lost, they lost the will to continue the dream too