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Essay On Crooks In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

674 Words3 Pages

People are all too often judged by their appearance rather than by who they really are. In the story Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, this is what happened to the stable buck Crooks. Crooks has one major difference from everyone on the ranch, he's black. This major difference gives Crooks an attitude towards life that is different from everyone else's . Crooks attitude is being closed off from the rest of the workers. He feels as if he isn't good enough to be with the other ranch hands. They don't want him in the bunk house, so he in turn doesn't want them in his room. He feels threatened by the others on the ranch.

Most of the people on the ranch treated Crooks unfairly just because he was black. In the story Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie arrived late to work at the ranch. In a conversation with another ranch hand he told them the boss was upset that they were late and he gave the stable buck hell too. When George questioned why he would give the stable buck hell, the ranch hand replied “Sure. Ya see the stable buck’s a nigger.” George then says “Nigger, huh?” The ranch hand replies “Yeah. Nice fella too.” Although the ranch workers thought Crooks …show more content…

The boss saw him as a nigger stable buck. Curly’s wife sees him as a nigger who she can have strung up. However, not everyone felt that way. Crooks greatly benefited by the arrival of George and Lennie. Lennie have him a new attitude towards life, letting himself feel equal to everyone. Lennie also gave Crooks a friend for the short time Lennie was in his room. Without Lennie talking to Crooks, Candy would have never been invited to sit down either. Candy and Lennie also made Crooks feel equal because each of them had their own disabilities that the other workers didn't have. This is an important life lesson for everyone. You should not judge a book by it’s cover, or a person by their skin

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In the book Of Mice of Men, crooks works as a stable buck on the ranch. Crooks is an older man as textual evidence state “that crooks is a cripple and has a lean face’’ on page 67 paragraph 1.I can surmise that crooks likes to isolated himself because when lennie went in crooks said this “ you got no right to come to my room. Nobody got any right in here but me’’. Paragraph 2 page 64 Crooks rely by saying “ you’re nuts.

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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.

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Lennie goes into Crooks room and finds Crooks rubbing salve on his back to ease the pain. This goes with the topic in that he had an impairment that made his life hard for him to work his jobs at a ranch with his Crooked back. Candy has a handful of his own to deal with that makes his daily tasks challenging to complete. Candy is one of the workers on the ranch that lost his right hand making daily work challenging. Candy lost his right hand when he was working with one of the farming machines at the ranch and know has to put more effort into the simple daily jobs that he had done before his accident.

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He feels brought down and dehumanized. After Curley’s wife left, Candy tells Crooks that she shouldn’t have said those things. Crooks says, “it wasn’t nothing…you guys comin’ in an’ settin made me forget. What she says is true” (82). This shows that Crooks knows that even though he thought he could get a place with the other guys, he knows is would never happen, because he is black and he will always be treated

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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.

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Crooks talks about himself in a very negative way and is seen when he said, "This is just a nigger talkin', an' a busted-back nigger. So it don't mean nothing, see?"(71) This exemplifies that Crooks has been looked down on his whole life and he is just repeating what he always hears. This demonstrates that crooks is so used to being judged that he starts telling people that they should judge him rather than befriending him. The next quote displays that the men on the ranch does not want to be around crooks when he says, “You go on get outta my room.

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Although Crooks is the only one that has his place the way he complains about not being able to play cards suggests that he would prefer being with the other guys. Also, another form of discrimination Crooks suffered was being called racial slurs. Throughout the book, he is called multiple times racial slurs. " Ya see the stable buck's a nigger."

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Crooks John Steinbeck wrote the novel Of Mice and Men of two ranchers, who came across a stable buck that is a Negro. The story of this stable buck is quite disconsolate, he has a crooked back on account of a horse that kicked him, which is how he got his name Crooks. Crooks is isolated from the rest in a separate room, “The boss gives him hell when he’s mad” (Steinbeck 20), and he has to take and deal with these conditions accordingly. However, Crooks is intelligent, lonely, and an expert.

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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

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One of his biggest challenges is that he is consistently not apart. For example, when all the other workers would go out to town, Crooks stays in his bunk and reads. He is aware of this discrimination and explains it to Lennie by saying, “ ‘Cause I’m black. They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink.

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The reader is led to believe this through the author's quotes when Lennie asks, "Why ain't you wanted?”, and Crooks responds, "Because I'm black. They say I stink. Well, I tell you, you all of you stink to me.” (P. 68). The reader understands that Crooks is not accepted by the other workers on the ranch because of his race.

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Of Mice and Men is a novella written by the John Steinbeck. George and Lennie are two characters trying to achieve The American Dream, which is basically owning a piece of land, however they first have to earn the money and stay out of trouble. George and Lennie find a place where they can work, but George has to keep and eye out and make sure Lennie doesn't get in trouble like they did in Weed. (I STILL DONT HAVE ANY IDEA AS TO WHAT TO WRITE IN THE THESIS STATEMENT BUT ILL SAVE THAT FOR TOMORROW) Crooks is defined as a negro stable buck who is lonely, isolated, and alienated because of the color of his skin.

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912 Words | 4 Pages

When Crooks is mentioned for the first time, Candy says that the boss “gave the stable buck hell” because Lennie and George were late arriving, but Candy then justifies the bosses’ actions by informing them that the “stable buck’s a nigger.” This justification implies that due to Crooks’ skin colour, he is automatically treated as a lesser human being that can be used as a tool by the hands of his white superiors. On the other hand, ranch workers like Candy, do acknowledge him as being a “nice fella” as they let him in on Christmas. This may link to the idea that they do not hate Crooks but that their racism is systemic; they have grown older to accept stereotypes against black people as being ordinary. Furthermore, his name “Crooks” emphasises the fact that he’s a possession to all white people; he has been branded with a name that reflects his physical disability which in the same sense resembles how slave masters would name their slaves.

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668 Words | 3 Pages

For example, when Lennie enters Crooks’ room in the barn, Crooks orders, “You go on get outta my room. I ain’t wanted in the bunk house, [...] Cause I’m black” (68). Conclusively, Crooks explains that he does not want Lennie in his room, just like the other ranch workers do not want a black man in theirs. In addition, Steinbeck shows the division between Crooks, a black man, and the rest of the ranch workers by explaining segregation on the ranch, for Crooks is forbidden to dwell with the other workers.

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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.

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