The Tale of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck vividly describes the lives of migrant workers living in rustic America. It tells the tragic story of two peripatetic men, George Milton and Lennie Small, who belong nowhere but each other. As migrant workers haunted by their dreams, Steinbeck uses the docile commitment that Lennie and George have to each other to describe the hardships they faced during the Great Depression of the 1930s. George agreed to take on the burden of responsibility to protect Lennie due to his mental illness. But for this reason he has created a cordon that will not allow him to realize his common dream of overcoming poverty. Lennie must face the most difficult obstacle of all, his aspiration and love for rabbits, which create a fatuous tranquility for him. A recurring premise that haunts the characters in the book is poverty and the veil that is created to cover their lives while dreaming of a comforting future. Through the piece Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck shows that reason is the main element for progress in reality and that, if not fully understood, the veil created by a dream could become larger than oneself. As migrant workers, George takes the role of a friend to Lennie, through this companionship Lennie creates many problems and George solves many problems. The family that George and Lennie form represents the counterbalance between dreams and rationalization. Throughout the piece Steinbeck surrounds the characters with the impression that migrant workers simply "come in, get their bunk and work a month, and then leave and go off on their own." (39). Through this Steinbeck shows the loneliness that the migrant worker creates to hide his own destiny...... middle of paper......and crushed are those without dreams like Curley, because if they have no dreams no one can tell them who cannot reach it. At the end of the piece, George realizes that he can no longer take care of his dream because it has become too much of a burden to bear. So he decides to kill Lennie before the other men do. This is a turning point in the life of a migrant worker where one needs to think about what is a dream and what is reality. In most cases it's not about killing someone, but in this case Lennie was the burden. Through this, Steinbeck shows Lennie's liberation from himself. Because Lennie is afraid of his dream and can no longer control himself. Through this, George understood that to move forward you have to give up what you love most. Works Cited Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. New York, NY: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1978.