Acosta 1Lorraine AcostaILS 209010 November 2019Of Mice and Men: Work Ethic and Life GoalsIn the many times I’ve read Of Mice and Men or watched the movie, I never really lookedat it from a “work” perspective; and, in doing so, I’ve found that there are several dimensions to the main characters,’ George, Lennie, and Curley’s wife, roles and duties as well as what they ultimately want to do with their lives. George is Lennie’s caretaker, like a parent. It is known early on that Lennie has a mental disability, despite his monumental physique and unbelievable strength, however, he is always getting into trouble and, therefore, getting George into trouble, which makes it difficult for them to hold down any employment. George and Lennie, from the very beginning of the tale, would talk about this little plot of land that they want to buy so they can go live there and, finally, Curley’s wife confides in Lennie and tells him that she wanted to become a movie star, but that it didn’t work out and she married Curley instead. In this paper, I shall explain each of these situations with more detail and shed light on how not only these characters’ work ethics but also things that come up have an impact on their goals.From the very beginning of the story, we can see that Lennie is not all there in the head. He is a rather large man, stronger than most, but he acts like a small child. George took over as his caretaker after Lennie’s Aunt Clara died (Steinbeck, p. 41). The problem is that Lennie, who doesn’t know what he’s doing most of the time, is always getting into trouble. George gets mad at Lennie at one point, saying,Acosta 2God a’mighty, if I was alone, I could live so easy. I could go get a job an’ work,an’ no trouble. No mess at all, and when the end of the month come, I could takemy fifty bucks and go into town and get whatever I want. Why, I could stay in acat house all night. I could eat any place I want, hotel or any place, and order anydamn thing I could think of. An’ I could do all that every damn month (Steinbeck,p. 21).I can understand how having to look after Lennie at all times could make it hard for either ofthem to work and save enough money to buy their farm. It’s like traveling around with a toddlerthat doesn’t know how strong he is and, even though this comes in very handy when liftingheavy bales of hay, he could potentially kill somebody; and that he does eventually. At the sametime, however, if you take a closer look at the quote above, George doesn’t say “At the end of themonth, I could take my fifty bucks and save it in a bank.” He also doesn’t say, “I could put myfifty bucks towards a down payment for that little plot of land.” Instead, he says he could spendall night in a brothel, eat whatever he wants, spend his money in any which way he wants; andthis is where we can see his poor work ethic and choices when it comes to fulfilling this distantdream of theirs. It’s not that they don’t want to work, because that they do, I just think that thisfarm dream is just a fantasy to them. Something they can talk about and mentally escape theirreality. It’s not until towards the end of the story when Candy hears Lennie and George talkingabout their plan and offers to give them money to buy the land that they even realize that theycould actually do it. But even when Candy