Notes

The definition of the "American Dream"
the ideal by which equality of opportunity is available to any American, allowing the highest aspirations and goals to be achieved.
The American dream is an unrealistic definition of happiness and it focuses on materialistic things that can be bought with money to make you happy, rather than true happiness brought from love, family and nature.
People may want the American Dream as a mask, to gloat or what they have rather than to be happy and kind. The American dream can get in people's heads and teach the wrong lessons of life.
Robert Burns wrote to a mouse
The title of John Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men” comes from a Robert Burns poem entitled “To A Mouse”. The poem’s speaker is talking to a mouse, basically explaining to him why he is afraid of the speaker and why he is so small and weak – this could definitely relate to the character of Lennie or could represent George talking to Lennie as the speaker talks to the mouse. The actual title comes from Burns’ stanza which states, In proving foresight may be vain: The best-laid schemes of mice and men Go, And leaves us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy! This stanza directly relates to the situation that the two men are in throughout the novel.
the targetted audience was children

theme statement
The theme of Flowers for Algernon is a whole view on the cycle of life, whether brains are more important than the heart, and what science can truly create.