The second character that near to achieve the dreams is George’s companion, Lennie Small. Lennie is portrayed as an innocent guy despite having a child-mind with a big appearance is hoping to have his own farm, a small piece of land and he wants to breed rabbits. Basically, Lennie’s dream is same with George’s. Although, Lennie and George are very different but they support each other in a world full of people to achieve their dreams. As for Lennie, it is the expectation of simply being able to pet animals all day long.
Instead of having his own farm with George, his biggest dream is basically on owning rabbits. “Let’s have different colour rabbits, George. ” “Furry ones, George, like I seen in the fair in Sacramento. ” The rabbits are an essential part of the dream for Lennie. When the rest of the world gets scary and complicated, petting soft things helps him to feel safe. He frequently asks George to repeat the details about the farm they will someday own where he will get to “tend the rabbits. “… “I remember about the rabbits, George. This line is repeated by Lennie few times whenever George and him talking about their dreams and Lennie is so excited about it since he likes to pet beautiful creatures. As we go through the story, we could say that the rabbits represent him as the rabbits are soft, peace and innocent. However, in order to achieve his dream, Lennie is just too strong to be able to treat animals gently that lead him to his broken dream. Because of his love towards rabbibts, he dreams that there will be an alfalfa patch were Lennie will get bags of alfalfa and take to them.
The rabbits are extremely important to him because we could see that the rabbit could make him behave. For instance, Lennie says “I can still tend the rabbits, George? ” after he gets into trouble with Curley and he only fought back after George told him to. Lennie is concerned more towards the rabbits instead of himself that getting hurt in the fight by asking George if he could still tending the rabbits because George would forbid him to tend them after the incident.
This shows how the rabbits play an important role in this novel towards Lennie’s life. At first, his dream almost becomes a reality after they got a job at the ranch. Furthermore, his vague dream has brightened after he met Candy and soon, the dream will come true. Candy willing to offer money, and they just need to save another one month salary without getting fired so that they could achieve their dreams together. “I’d make a will an’ leave my share to you guys in case of I kick off, ‘cause I ain’t got no relatives nor nothing. You guys got any money? Unfortunately, Lennie’s strength ruins everything after he was shot by George because of Curley’s wife death yet his dream is annihilated and buried with his death. “He shook her, and her body flopped like a fish. And then she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck. ” In some aspects Lennie’s innocence keeps the dream alive, but his human imperfection makes the dream impossible to realize. In fact, Lennie could achieve his dream according to his and George’s plan to work on the ranch until they both accumulate an adequate amount of revenue to purchase their own land and settle there.
In addition, Lennie’s attitude also can be a barrier towards his dream as he is too dependent on George and cannot make any decision since he is having mentally handicapped with no ability to understand abstract concept like death. This means that, Lennie is the biggest obstacle in achieving his dreams. For instance, they run from their previous job after Lennie makes a trouble by holding a lady’s red dress and indirectly he scares the lady. All in all, his mistakes changed everything and he lost his dream in the blink of eyes.
