What is the role of the characters in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men?

I would think that the role of the characters in the
Steinbeck novella is to explore how there is a hollowness in America of the Great
Depression.  Each of the characters experiences a hollowness within their pursuit of
dreams.  This helps to bring out how Steinbeck feels that the American Dream of the
1930s is fraught with pain and emptiness.  Each character's dream is undercut by some
aspect of reality making their dream impossible.  The ring in which Curley now fights is
against other ranchers, never to experience the fight in the ring again.  Curley's wife
believed she could have been in cinema, or "pitchers," but that dream will never
materialize.  Crooks' hope of finding solidarity or community is something undercut by
both social and economic reality.  Candy's dream of joining George and Lennie ends when
Lennie kills Curley's wife.  George's hope of being in the position of economic
ownership and possessing autonomy in his own life is essentially gone when he has to
kill Lennie, who will never realize his dreams of tending the rabbits.  Each of these
dreams represents extinguished hope and ruptured hopes.  In this light, the function of
Steinbeck's characters is to represent the pain and suffering of American citizens
during the 1930s and the Great Depression.