Waller 1
Jackie Waller
Mrs. Hollenbach
English Period DEF
17 December 2010
Of Mice and Men Essay
In the novella, Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck and the movie, The Green Mile, by
Frank Darabont hopes and dreams play a big part in the character’s lives. The four characters I will be focusing on in the paper are George, Lennie, John Coffey, and Paul. George and Paul both have the same duty with Lennie and John, they are they’re care takers or watchers. Lennie and John Coffey both have mental disabilities and they both are very dependent on the people who are looking after them. Hopes and dreams have a very big part in the novella and the movie because that is the only happy thing that they have in they’re lives. In both the novella, Of Mice and Men , and the movie, The Green Mile , hopes and dreams are always there, but some are never fulfilled.
In the beginning/middle of the movie, The Green Mile, John Coffey is dependent on Paul because he knows that he can trust him. John shows Paul and the rest of the sheriffs what he can do after Percy steps on Mr. Jingles. When Percy steps on the mouse Dell’s hope for him to be happy and have a friend before he dies is ruined. Dell’s reaction when Percy kills him is devastating, he screams no, starts crying and cursing at Percy, everyone around him asks Percy why he does that and what he is thinking ( The Green Mile ). At this point Dell has lost all hope because he doesn’t think that he is ever going to get him back. Dell’s dream is to have someone that he can trust and talk to in his holding cell. He mentions that he can share secrets with Mr.
Jingles and that Mr. Jingles won’t tell anyone (
The Green Mile).
Hopes and dreams can’t be

Waller 2 fulfilled in this situation because Dell has no one to talk to or trust therefore he has lost all hope in the matter of trust.
In the end of the movie, Paul and John are friends they trust each other and Paul realizes the John doesn’t kill the girls he is trying to bring them back to life. While they are getting John ready for his execution John shows Paul what he sees every day. He shows Paul that Crazy Bill kills the girls and all he was trying to do was bring them back to life, but it appears to the people who find him in the woods that he kills them ( The Green Mile ). All hope for John is lost when he caught trying to save the girls. It’s lost because he is put in prison for trying to do a good deed.
In the beginning of the novella, Of Mice and Men , George is faced with choosing for two people. He has to choose for himself and he has to choose for Lennie because Lennie depends on
George for everything. Lennie has a dream in his mind about living off the “fatta the lan” (57).
George tells Lennie multiple times a story about living on a farm where there are rabbits because he knows that it makes Lennie happy and Lennie asks for George to tell him the story all of the time.
In the middle of the novella, George is telling the story to Lennie while they are in the bunkhouse while George is playing cards. Lennie is asking questions about what their dream land and house would be, George’s response is:
Sure we’d have a little house an’ a room to ourself. Little fat iron stove, an’ in the winter we’d keep a fire goin’ in it. It ain’t enough land so we’d have to work too hard. Maybe six, seven hours a day. We wouldn’t have to buck no barely eleven hours a day. An’ when we in a crop, why, we’d be there to take the crop up. We’d know what come of our planting (58).

Waller 3
Lennie has this pictured in his mind that he will be happy and have no problems because it’s the picture George puts in his head with this story. This is the happiness that George and Lennie hope for because they have been working for other people and making money from other people all of their lives. The dream of own their own land keeps them to behave at work and work as hard as they can so they can pay off their land.
In the end of the novella, Lennie’s disability is at its greatest. Lennie kills Curley’s wife because she put up a fight while he is feeling her hair. He goes to the bush where George tells him to in the beginning of the novella. The dream of owning their own land dies after he kills
Curley’s wife because he takes someone’s life. George and Lennie talk in the woods while
George is holding a gun but Lennie doesn’t realize he’s hold it. Lennie questions him while he gets the power to put the gun to Lennie’s head. George gets the power while he is telling Lennie the story of their dream land:
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. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled forward to the sand, and he lay without quivering (106).
Their hopes and dreams fully die because George kills Lennie therefore, George can’t fulfill the dream he and Lennie were hoping for. The happiness that George hopes for in the beginning now ends and in a certain way begins. It ends because he loses his partner and traveling buddy, but it begins because the weight of looking after Lennie is off of his chest.
In conclusion, hopes and dreams in both Of Mice and Men and The Green Mile are never fulfilled because something always gets in the way. Lennie and John Coffey are killed, but in a

Waller 4 way George and Paul are killed too. Lennie and John Coffey are physically killed because of the choices they made in their lives. George and Paul are killed on the inside because they have to kill their close friends when they know they didn’t mean to do what they did. Lennie, George,
John Coffey, and Paul never get their hopes or dreams fulfilled because of the choices they make in their lives.

Waller 5
Works Cited
Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men.
New York: Penguin Books, 1993. Print.
The Green Mile.
Dir. Frank Darabont. Perf. Tom Hanks, Michael Clark, Duncan, and David
Morse. Castle Rock Entertainment, 1999. DVD.