Examples Of Crooks Treatment In Of Mice And Men

Crooked Treatment In the 1930’s, racism was the norm to both blacks and whites. This is evident in John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men. Life on the ranch is much harder for blacks because of the social standard of life during this time period. This is demonstrated on one of the characters in this novel, Crooks. He is treated like a pet by all the other workers. The way Crooks was isolated from others during his childhood, is separated from his fellow ranch workers, and can never contribute to owning land all show that racism is a big part of the story and that it affects him as a person. Crooks is first exposed to racism when he was just a young boy. His father never let him play with the other white children for his own well being

Don't make no difference who the guy is, long’s he's with you, I tell ya,’ he cried, ‘I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.’”
This shows how it is killing Crooks on the inside from being so lonely and all he wants is just one friend. However, at this point in the story, certain characters are become less racist. When he lets Lennie, Candy, and George into his room it shows that everybody is becoming more accepting of one another and are treating each other like humans. No matter how sad, he will still be a lonely black man with absolutely no power. Though some characters in the story have put aside racism, Crooks will still always be at the bottom of the chain when it comes to have having power and rights. This is shown when Curley's wife comes in and reminds Crooks the things that she can have him killed in the blink of an eye. The novel states, “‘Well you keep your place then, nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny.’” This quotation shows that it is very extreme as to how little power he has. On the ranch Curley’s wife was treated with very little respect and did not have many rights because she was a woman. Even with the little rights that she had, she still had the power to get Crooks killed because he’s black and she's white. All of these demonstrations of racism in the novel shape Crooks into the defeated person he is