In the novella Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck many characters are portrayed as weak and inferior. During the time of this story, the Great Depression takes place, which was a time when many workers lost their jobs due to the stock market crash and the dust bowls. Because of this, they had to travel to places to find job opportunities. Workers often traveled to California in search of the rich fields of the Central Valley. This book focuses on two men, George and Lennie, who travel to find work opportunities, and they meet many people along the way. These new characters present many weaknesses throughout the novel. Two characters that are mainly focused on based on their weaknesses, are Crooks and Curley’s wife. Crooks faces a lot of discrimination …show more content…
They had little to no say in everything and mainly worked due to them being seen as objects rather than people. On the other hand, Curley’s wife is mistreated due to her flirtatious manner. She is shown as a lonely person on the ranch due to lack of talk with the workers. All of the men judge her because they think all she's doing is trying to flirt with them. Although it can be argued that Curley’s Wife is seen as most inferior, Crooks is Steinbeck’s most inferior character due to his different skin color and loneliness.
Throughout the novel Of Mice and Men, Crooks is seen as the most restricted character. Crooks is one of the hardest workers on the ranch, because he is forced to be. Crooks struggles with discrimination because he is a different race than all of the other men in his workplace. He is seen as very powerless unless he is working as a stable buck on the ranch. Crooks never has a say in deciding what he should be doing or who he should be with, and he is very lonely because no one will ever talk to him due to the Jim Crow laws. In his free time he will either
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Curley’s wife is the only woman on the ranch and the men do not like that. Throughout the novel she is always seen wandering around the ranch or looking for Curley, her husband. When she is not doing one of those things, she is usually waiting for Curley while doing chores around the house. She gets very lonely because she usually has no one to talk to, even when Curley gets home. This is because Curley mostly talks and tells stories, but never listens to her stories or things she has to say. She tries to find people to engage in conversation with, but no one will talk to her because everyone thinks she is only trying to flirt. Men judge her based on her looks and say she has the “eye” even though she is married. When Curley’s wife talks to the workers on the ranch, the readers can observe her vulnerability. In this scene, most of the boys are out in town, so Curley’s wife tries to find all the men that stayed back on the ranch. When she discovers Crooks, Lennie and Candy in Crooks’ barn, she goes in to try and make conversation with them. They boys start scolding her and telling her she should not be in Crooks room because she has a husband and shouldn’t be talking to other men. She gets very upset with this because she's only trying to make a friend to talk to. She proceeds to tell the boys in an angry voice how she isn’t giving the men any trouble and she only wants to talk, as friends,
As the only African American man on the farm, Crooks is often found being the one the boss lashes out on when he’s upset. As a black man he set apart from the rest of the farm workers, and also because he is disabled, which makes ,him stand out. It is obvious that they don’t like people who stand out, similar to Whitey. Crooks says, “You go on and get outta my room. I ain’t wanted in the bunkhouse, and you ain’t wanted in my room.”
As the only women on the ranch, this causes Curley's wife to be the minority to all of the men on the farm. This causes her to become very lonely and isolated since she is the only women. In the texts Curley's wife says, “‘I get lonely,’... ‘You can talk to people, but I can't talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad, ‘How’d you like not to talk to anybody?’”
There, they encounter many different characters with their own shortcomings, whether mental, physical, or social. Each character and their handicap together represent a specific theme in the novel. Crooks is the African-American man who works in the stables of the farm. He got kicked by a horse many years ago, resulting in his crooked back. While his back is indeed a physical defect that hinders him, but the thing that segregates him from the others is his race.
Curley's wife is not who the men on the ranch think she is, rather she is just an outcast woman who longs for a friend. Crooks is a socially weak and isolated "negro stable buck" (62). He lives in a time where segregation was enforced and African-Americans were discriminated against. Because of this, people regard him as inferior. Crooks is often excluded and unacknowledged.
Because Curley’s wife is closely connected to the boss, her engagements towards the men on the ranch will only push her further away from them. Also, when Curley’s wife appears, her loneliness pours out of her with resentment. She describes her isolation at the ranch by stating, “I get lonely...you can talk to people, but I can't talk to nobody but Curley” (87). This shows that shes just a lonely young and naive girl, who uses her sexuality to get noticed on the
Crooks is the only black man on the ranch who has a crooked spine, which gives him his name. He is a stable buck on the ranch. Because of his race, Crooks is limited to many things. “‘They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black…” (68). This puts him in a bad mood in general, and he is mean to others on the ranch.
The Great Depression was a period of difficulties where people didn’t have much of anything. It was an era where many were traveling from place to place in hope of achieving the American dream. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men the two main characters, George and Lennie, are traveling to places in search of a job that would support the dream they’re after. All the characters have a dream they would like to achieve. Curley’s wife and George share a motive behind the goals they envision to one day meet.
Crooks is an important character in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Crooks’ character is named for his crooked back caused by being kicked by a horse at the stable in which he works. He lives by himself on the ranch and Steinbeck uses his character to demonstrate discrimination through Crooks’ struggle with being separated from others on the ranch, his ironic enjoyment of power, and his inconsistent view of himself in society. There are times in life when we meet people who seem so shut off from the rest of the world that we wonder how they continue.
In the novella “Of Mice and Men”' written by John Stienbeck, Steinbeck uses the characterization of two characters, Crooks a stablehand, and Candy another ranch worker, along with the internal conflicts that the two men experience to express the idea that isolation can have negative effects on people. These elements helped to add depth and substance to the novella. Steinbeck's characterization of Crooks lets his viewers understand him and his turmoil better. Crooks was a black stablehand who worked on a ranch in California. He had an old back injury from a horse kick that left him crippled and prevented him from ever leaving the ranch.
Crooks is a black man who has been given the nickname because of his crooked back. He is another character in the novel that is discriminated against. Similarly, as Lennie and Candy are discriminated because of their weakness, Crooks is discriminated because of his race. For example, he says how he “ain’t wanted in the bunkhouse… can’t play [cards] because I’m black” (68). His race causes him to be separated from everyone else and be isolated in his own room.
While Crooks, a victim of racial prejudice, expresses his isolation openly, he also socializes with other workers on the job and while playing horseshoes with them. Curley’s wife, on the other hand, cannot talk to anyone without suffering the consequences of a jealous husband: “ I get so lonely,’ she said. “you can talk to people , but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad. How’d you like not to talk to anybody?”
there are two characters that interact with Crooks. Curley’s wife and Lennie. Lennie is a very strong man and he has a mental disability, and Curley’s wife is the only women on the ranch
Crooks (named crooks after being kicked in the back by a horse) is a very controversial character as he is the only black member of the farm and doesn’t actually feature to much in the book. When he is in it though most of what we find out is when Lenny walks into his room. From the start its clear that crooks is a very abused and defensive because he says “You got no right to come in my room” as soon as he notices Lennie stood in his room even though Lennie doesn’t really see any difference between skin colour and doesn’t understand why this is happening. Most of what can be known about Crooks is from the items in his room. His room is actually connected to the barn showing they do not value him as a person but only as a stable buck.
Crooks and Curley’s wife are both main characters in the story. Although they both repel each other's characters, both of them highlight the prejudice which Black people and Women suffer in the 1930’s society. During the 1930’s, black people from the south were excluded from white people activities, which then forced them to leave and travel north and west in hopes of a better life. In the same time period,women still faced discrimination in workplaces, households and suffered in the great depression. Steinbeck uses this era of isolation to illustrate the segregated society which the characters live in, and allude their personality to racial attitudes and
John Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men, is a compelling story that has captured and embodied the struggle and loneliness felt by many during the Great Depression. While desire for the American Dream is prominent in the novel, Steinbeck is able to demonstrate the wants from different social classes through the construction of characters such as George Milton and Curley’s wife. With these characters, Steinbeck successfully displays the difference in ideas, values and attitudes of certain social classes in the 1930’s and the illustrates the rarity of achieving the American Dream. Steinbeck wrote this novel during the Great Depression, when America was suffering greatly by the disastrous crash of the stock market. From this point in time, separation of the different classes became