Of Mice and Men?

Question

The title "of Mice and Men" comes from a poem by Scottish poet Robert Burns. The poem "To A Mouse" describes how a mouse's home is indeed destroyed. A significant line in the poem, the line from which the novel is taken, is "the best laid schemes o'mice and 'men gang aft agly." In our words, even the most organized ideas can still not work out.

Do you agree with Burns' comment about plans and dreams? Why do you think that we still continue to dream despite the fact the many dreams are never realized and many plans are often defeated?

copy of the poem, "To A Mouse," :
http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~ridge/local/mouse.html

Answer 1

To dream is to hope. Without hope, what kind of life can someone have? Having hope is all some people have.

Answer 2

To 'dream' of a future plan is one of the most basic thoughts in the human condition. It is not about realizing dreams as much as it is believing that you can better your situation in life's grand scheme. Steinbeck was very much a realist and was attempting to show how life is never as we hope it to be, especially in the context of the depression years. We continue to dream because we are 'hard wired' to do so. To want a better life, in a better setting, will always be with us. And thank goodness for that . There are so many negative vibes to deal with in life that if it weren't for the 'dreams' we would probably give in to the dread of life's continuing struggle. Great Book. Love Burns too, though difficult to decipher.

Answer 3

I think people still dream because it gives them visions and goals to work towards to. If we stop dreaming, we stop progressing. Even though most of our dreams are never realized, we still lay the foundation for our future generations. In my opinion, the best dreams contains a set of realistic goals that you can accomplish. In other words, if I want to be a CEO of a company, i know that I need to work my way up the ladder. In order to do that, i need to be educated and have experience running a company. Therefore, one of my goals would be to get my business degree and also achieve the level of middle management by my mid-30s. These are realistic goals that will help me achieve my dream.

Answer 4

We continue to dream in the face of insurmountable odd's, in spite of our failure to realise most of our dreams because,I believe, we are born with an inate capcity to imagine what could be, the capacity of forethought and the ability to sometimes bring our imagination to a limited reality, a chance to make our fantasies our reality. No other creature, to my knowledge, has this abillity.