Similarities Between Crooks In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

In John Steinbeck’s classic novel, Of Mice and Men, the barriers that are formed between the characters are apparent throughout the entire story. These barriers are created because of other people, or disabilities that these individuals face. The character, Crooks, is held back by his race, which is African-American. Curley’s wife is restricted by her husband, Curley, and the fact that she is a woman. Most importantly, George is held back by Lennie because of Lennie’s mental disability. Crooks is held back from doing things and interacting with people because of his race. Crooks is an African-American, and during 1930s, blacks and whites still had trouble getting along with each other. He does not get invited to go to Susy’s house with the

It can be said that George acts as a father figure to Lennie, even though Lennie is a grown man who’s expected to know how to behave. Because of this, George has to make sacrifices to keep Lennie safe. An example of this is when George and Lennie had their old job in Weed, and Lennie got in a great deal of trouble for pulling on the girl’s red dress. George had to forget about his job and protect Lennie from getting arrested. At one point, George even says that his life would be easier without Lennie in it. “ ‘God you’re a lot of trouble, I could get along so easy and so nice if I didn’t have you on my tail.’ ” (p. 7). In addition to taking care of him, George would sometimes have to stay back with Lennie, to make sure he didn’t get into any trouble, instead of hanging out with the other men on the ranch or other things that he preferred. Finally, Lennie emotionally and physically tired out George, which held him back from things. They have gotten fired from so many jobs, and Lennie has done so many things that were bad that George became sick of it. At the end of the book, after George kills Lennie, Slim tells him, ‘ “You hadda, George. I swear you hadda.” ’ (p. 107) because he knew how tiring Lennie was to deal with. Lennie set George back the most in life, and there were a lot of restraints as to what he could do because of