African Americans’ Dreams and Expression of Love during the Great Depression: A Critical Reading through &i&Of Mice and Men&/i& by John Steinbeck

摘要

Love and dream sometime appear as inseparable things that keep people hoping and fighting for living and better life; this is much true for those African Americans, who, after they were said to be emancipated, have had to pay daily tribute for that change of status. And when an almost uncontrollable crisis as the Great Depression occurred, those African Americans could do nothing but dream of miracles, and live on the reciprocal assistance and love from their fellows. John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men came in this context, with the description of two young African Americans’ unreachable dream and the impact of their dependence and their excessive love for each other. This study is the revisitation of two different and opposite black Americans’ event ful life who, in search of a much chimeric future, have been committing crimes, which will make impossible the achieving of their goal. Steinbeck’s novel is then plotted in the double context of American racial segregation and the 1929 global economic crisis. The characteristic of this study has been many folds: first it has considered the context, that is the circumstances or events that form the environment within which both the historical Great depression and Steinbeck’s novel have taken place; then it has based on critical thinking, which is a disciplined intellectual criticism that combines research knowledge of historical context, and balanced judgement, that is, evaluating, examining and analyzing.