Race Discrimination In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Take it back to when you were in the cornfield with your friends. It didn’t matter the skin color, who they were or anything. What mattered was that you were having fun. Now you're in the 1930’s, isolated and alone in a bunker rubbing liniment on your crooked back contemplating on how important your life is. Throughout John Steinbeck's novella “Of Mice and Men”, Crook’s worth of an individual's life is at the bare minimum from being discriminated because of his race, being labeled as disabled, and having to work under everyone else. Race discrimination is shown by directly being based on a character named Crooks who people treated differently because he was black. “Cause I’m black. They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black.”(75) Crooks was always left out of everything as if he was only a piece of dirt. Imagine feeling like nothing

“Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego- nothing to arouse either like or dislike. He said “Yes, ma’am,” and his voice was toneless.”(89) Crooks has almost the least amount of power on the ranch besides George and Lennie who just arrived. Crooks is threatened multiple times that he could be fired by Curley’s wife but she does nothing at the ranch except look for her husband. How much power a person has really depends on connections a person has. For example, the only reason Curley’s wife has the capability to hold Crooks’ job over him is because she is married to Curley who is the son of the boss. Crooks working beneath people who abuse their power towards him just threaten him to show him that he’s nothing besides a worker and gets no say at all to anything. In conclusion, Crooks worth as an individual stays at the bare minimum without a change. Throughout the whole novella Crooks is emotionally abused breaking him down to feel powerless which will leave him to feel like