ipl-logo

Crooks, The Negro Stable Buck: Character Analysis

702 Words3 Pages

Crooks, The Negro Stable Buck Murder, betrayal, friendship, passion these are just some of the things you would get from reading Of Mice and Men. Of Mice and Men has characters other than just George and Lennie that have a very deep purpose within the book. I choose to examine one of those side characters in Crooks. My thought after reading the book about Crooks is that, Crooks is separate yet actually equal but the separation makes him isolated and miserable. Crooks pushed others away because they are not alike himself. Crooks is very sealed of the author had described him as the following. “Crooks kept his distance and demanded others keep theirs,” (Steinbeck 67). Crooks has trust issues because of how sealed of and private he is. His …show more content…

We get some background to Crooks childhood and we can see why he might push people away. “I was born right here in California. My old man had a chicken ranch, ‘bout ten acres. The white kids came to play at our house, an’ sometimes I went to play with them, an’ some of the was pretty nice. My ol’ man didn’t like that. I never knew till long later why he didn’t like that. Now I know.” (Steinbeck 70) We see in this quote where his stubborn attitude to the status quo From the previous paragraph comes from. I think this was pretty common for people to share the same beliefs that their parents hold and it probably got passed down from the slave days when the white man was the sworn enemy even though in this quote we see a glimpse of unity. I guess that’s why it took 100 Years since The Emancipation Proclamation for someone to emerge prolifically Like Dr. King and make a public …show more content…

Crooks tells us this here. “There wasn’t another colored family for miles around and now there ain’t a colored man on this ranch” (Steinbeck 70) The Brotherhood that would exist between African Americans post-Plessy v. Ferguson because of the separation wasn’t there for Crooks because nobody else was there for him. Despite being “better off” because he had privacy and more personal space it didn’t matter because he had no one there for him to share it with. It is not in human nature to be in Isolation feeling included and united with another is a basic human psychological need and Crooks has been denied that right be segregating him and driving him away. The Segregation Crooks faces Isn’t nearly as a harsh as it would be in Jackson or Birmingham However, The isolation is ten times worse. Crooks pushes others away just as much as others push him away this is because he was taught this as a child that, he must relate with his own ‘kind’ though there isn’t another black family for miles. Crooks has a very lonely life because he doesn’t have any person that can completely understand what he feels. He can prattle on to people like lennie all he wants but it doesn’t satisfy him

Show More
Related
521 Words | 3 Pages

Crooks is constantly being discriminated against which is the effect of being colored at this time. During the book talks to Crooks about the farm he desires, Crook says to Lennie, “S'pose you couldn't go into the bunkhouse and play rummy 'cause you was black. How'd you like that?” () Crook is at the bottom of the social hierarchy because of his race. This inequality is the barrier to his dreams of being

Read More
698 Words | 3 Pages

According to the story crooks stated “well i ain't giving u no trouble. Think i dont wanna talk to anyone every once awhile”. This quote is saying that crooks don't mind talking to other people every once in a while. He want someone to talk to because he is lonely and he enjoy talking to another people. This explains why crook is lonely but the biggest reason is segregation because he black and he has to be careful talking to people because they could get him in trouble.

Read More
652 Words | 3 Pages

MLK was a legendary man, who did bold things in the name of justice, freedom and equality. Kind of like Americans, except MLK means the equality part. He has done many works, and his most famous is the “I Have a Dream” speech. Another famous document he wrote is his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, which he wrote while jailed for nonviolent protesting of racial segregation. To argue his point, MLK uses logos, or clear reasoning with facts, and pathos, or charged language used to stir up emotion.

Read More
459 Words | 2 Pages

Back in the 30’s, segregation was a big problem. People whose skin was colored didn’t have the same rights as white men. Crooks is isolated from the rest of the guys because he is black and he gets put into a broken old shack instead of a real bunkhouse. In this quote, Crooks feels that if the men aren’t letting him in the bunkhouse, why should he let some white man come

Read More
4323 Words | 18 Pages

The Mississippi Constitution of 1890 was created fourteen years after the end of Reconstruction in the South and helped usher in the Jim Crow era that would proceed almost a century after. The constitution had many different sections, but a main concern at the time was the uniform poll tax, literacy tests, and the Grandfather clause, which would disfranchise most African Americans and many whites as well. The nation had different ideas on suffrage and who should be able to vote since the end of the war. Certain events would follow that would limit more of the freedoms of African Americans as well.

Read More
489 Words | 2 Pages

Crooks is isolated because he’s a black man that has a crooked back and that doesn’t have that much rights so he will spend most of his time in the bunkhouse reading books. Steinbeck used crooks in this story because so they can show that African Americans are lonely.

Read More
584 Words | 3 Pages

He has this big dream of living at a ranch, with his own family, and what a typical ranch has. Unfortunately, he cannot pursue his dream. Crooks is African American. The setting of the novel is during the 1930s which is America's time of the Great Depression. Therefore racial equality by law has a long way to go.

Read More
748 Words | 3 Pages

This shows Crooks’s true values and feelings as he cares enough to protect Lennie from himself. This shows his brotherhood even for someone of a different race than

Read More
708 Words | 3 Pages

Lennie asked Crooks “Why Ain’t you wanted?” Crooks replied “Cause I’m black” he also told Lennie, “I tell ya a guy gets lonely and he gets sick.” The explanation supports the fact that Crooks was plagued by loneliness and alienation and he wanted

Read More
880 Words | 4 Pages

Steinbeck displays through the dialogue and characterizations that these characters experience isolation because of both social barriers and personal choice. Crooks being an African-American on the ranch, full of whites, struggles racially which causes his withdrawal from the society. Crooks explains to Lennie his when he’s accompanied by him “ A guy goes nuts if he ain 't got nobody. Don 't make no difference who the guy is long’s

Read More
1354 Words | 6 Pages

Another reason that he himself has become isolated is because after he moved to New York he refuse to have any connections with his family. Leaving him even more isolated, because family should be the number one support that a person should have even through the toughest time that one might pass. Another factor that took into place is that his grandfather on his death bed told him that a Negro should just play the white system and take them for everything they can “overcome’em with yeses, udermine’em with grins, agree’em to death and destruction, let’em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open”(Ellison 16). In his search for his grandfather’s request it has left him alone with nothing to support himself, since he had to leave his family and friends. He also refuse to have any friends because he wanted to focus on his goals in life and without any friends one is left isolated, because frankly without any friends one cannot have any moral support so that they don’t feel left out.

Read More
796 Words | 4 Pages

They say I stink. Well, I tell you, all of you stink to me” (68). As blacks were no longer enslaved, they were still an outcast in America at the time during the Great Depression. Treated unequally they couldn’t get the same jobs as what most white men could get but, if they do they were separated. As Crooks was working at the ranch just like the other men, he was living separately from the other men making him isolated.

Read More
977 Words | 4 Pages

Crooks is black and that is not something that can be changes. Just like how Curley’s wife is a girl and Candy lost his hand in an accident and everyone grows old. Things like this still go on today. While sometimes it is not as obvious other times it is easy to see. These days people face intolerance in some places because of their sexual orientation , something they cannot control.

Read More
282 Words | 2 Pages

Crooks is very lonely and solitude for being alone every day. As a result, he wants to have friends who he can communicate with. No one has come into his room except for Slim and the boss, so when Lennie and Candy come, it is difficult for Crooks to “conceal his pleasure with anger” (75). Although he wants to express anger about people coming into his room, inside he is happy about it and enjoys it. This instability and loneliness that he has leads him to say how he could work for George, Lennie, and Candy on their farm.

Read More
513 Words | 3 Pages

They say I stink. Well I tell you all of you stink to me.” ” (65) Crooks was shunned because his physical appearance and wasn’t treated the same as the rest of the men. This makes Crooks a key character that informs us of the social injustices that where prominent during the time period of the novel.

Read More

More about Crooks, The Negro Stable Buck: Character Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document