"Of Mice and Men," by John Steinbeck is a fictional story set in California during the Great Depression, which follows the misadventures of George and Lennie as they strive to attain their dream property. The elusiveness of a fantasy, namely the ‘American Dream’, is a prominent idea within the text that is important to study due to some aspirations having the corresponding indefinability in reality. Most major characters in Of Mice and Men admit, at one point or another, to dreaming of a different life with contentment and freedom. Before her death, Curley’s wife confesses her desire to be a movie star: “He [said] I could go with that show. But my ol’ lady wouldn’t let me.”, “So I married Curley”. Crooks, the sour stable buck, allows himself the pleasant fantasy of “lend[ing] a hand.” hoeing a patch at Lennie’s farm And Candy latches on desperately to George’s vision of owning ten of acres. Early within the text, circumstances have already robbed most of the characters of these wishes. George and Lennie have a notable inclination to follow the American Dream by the means of acquiring a plot of land, despite the obvious slimness of chance they have in their successful eventuation. The mutual feeling hope which drives them in following their fantasy is often challenged by realism through characters such as Crooks, who proposes that they will never earn a plot of land “till they take [them] out in a box.” Their foreseeable future of failure is supported by Lennie’s subconscious waywardness and accidental ability to cause injury to those around him. George is awakened to the impossibility of his dream when his partner Lennie accidentally kills the wife of Curley, and subsequently is killed himself. This devastation proves that the stable buck right: such paradises of freedom and contentment are not existent within humanity. It is important to recognize that this elusive dream exists today. In real life, e