How does the title Of Mice and Men affect our view of the dream and our expectations of what will happen later in the novel?

To understand the title's connection to dreams, a reader
must read poet Robert Burns' "To a Mouse," from which Steinbeck got the idea for the
title. A line from the poem that is often paraphrased is the origin of the phrase "of
mice and men." It reads,

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"The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, / [often
go awry]" (38-39).

In the
poem, a farmer unintentionally destroys a mouse's home and then ponders how humans and
animals make plans and have dreams that are often left unfulfilled or destroyed (like
the mouse's home).  Steinbeck uses this idea to foreshadow and demonstrate why George
and Lennie's dream of owning their own farm with rabbits one day will never come true.
Thus, if a reader knows the background of Burns' poem as he or she begins reading
Of Mice and Men, it is simple to catch Steinbeck's foreshadowing of
unattainable dreams, whether those dreams be George and Lennie's farm dream, Crooks'
dream of companionship, or Curley's Wife's dream to be famous and
idolized.