Of mice and men is the story of two men George Milton and Lennie Small Essay

Of mice and men is the story of two men George Milton and Lennie Small who are two people who move from place to place in search of work. This is so that one day they can afford to buy a small farm somewhere where they can live alone and be there own bosses. George looks after Lennie because Lennie is mentally slow and he has looked after him since Lennie’s aunt died, because Lennie is mentally challenged, he tends to get George and himself into trouble because of stupid little things. They where on the run and they found a ranch in the Salinas valley California where they could work as ranch hands. Crooks, the black stable buck, was a proud aloof man who kept his distance from other people and demanded that they keep their own distance too. This was because he was black and at the time this novel was written, there was a lot of racist discrimination towards people with black skin, and so if he did mix with the others they would just make a mockery of him by using sarcasm and taunts. Crooks was obviously a very intelligent person because he controlled his inner anger towards the other people on the ranch but he was also a proud and bitter man. Proud because he never let anyone see how he truly felt and the ridicule and name calling and bitter because of the way he is treated and he passes on the hurt feeling he has to other people he thinks that there will be no recriminations from. He feels he is isolated because he is the only black man on the ranch and one of the very few black people in the entire area. Crooks is treated badly due to the racism in both the ranch and society as a whole. At the time when this story was written, the world was a very racist place and anyone with a different coloured skin other than white was treated differently. He was called a nigger and yet he was born in America so in fact, he was a true American and not a nigger, but due to him being black, he was treated very differently. He was given all the jobs that a white man would like to consider below him, i.e. cleaning out the stables. Even though the workers on the ranch did not set out to insult him deliberately, the use of the term ‘nigger’ signals to people that black men like Crooks were degraded both verbally and physically by people with white skin. Crooks was openly referred to as a ‘nigger’, which amplifies the casual racism that was directed at him by the others. Crooks bullies Lennie because he has been tormented and bullied all the time he has been able to understand the facts of racial prejudice. He is then given the chance to bully Lennie. To get Lennie’s attention he uses a subdued and convincing voice. When he gets the affect he wants he then turns to bullying and you can see his â€Å"face lighted with pleasure in his torture†. He revelled in the suffering and tribulation he put on Lennie because he is enjoying bullying instead of being bullied himself. He also likes his new level as he can only do this to Lennie because he is not a threat and it is possibly the only time he can get his own back in some small way shape of form. Crooks’ character helps to widen the theme of loneliness in the novel because all the men on the ranch would have been proud and bitter men in someway because of the work they were forced to do. In addition, the way it says that it is unusual for people to travel around in twos I think that they were used to people keeping them selves to them because at the time it was written it was the great depression and so people were sad and tended not to communicate with other people. Crooks is given the smallest most desolate room on the ranch he is made to keep away from the bunkhouse where the rest of the workers work. His room is not only his room it is sort of an equipment store a place where equipment gets fixed. He is the also the only black person on the ranch and possibly the only black person for miles, which means that he has no one of his own race to converge with. The other thing that is not on his side is that with him being black no one would believe him if any thing went wrong an example of this is when Curleys wife goes into Crooks’ room and crooks tell her to leave she replies with that she calls him a nigger ands that she could get him lynched (hanged) quiet easily, implying that she doesn’t like him and that she could do it if she was pushed. The language used to describe Crooks gives him a lack of recognition which help the author to make the reader of the novel feel sorry for Crooks and that they would just want to help him. John Steinbeck uses this to show his lack of identity and thus making him an outsider to the rest of the people on the ranch who have a full explicit description of the way they look. The lack of description of crooks makes us feel sympathetic towards him Steinbeck also uses like a sad slow old-fashioned form of writing to make you feel like he is lonely and is sympathetic towards him. Crooks is quit an important character in the novel it helps the writer convey the loneliness and solitude there must have been being a worker on a desolate ranch. Crooks is also the only person in the novel who can take part in one of the novels main themes (discrimination). It is also a good way of letting you see what life was like and the way people strived to make their life long dream come true (the American dream). After a while Crooks begins to trust Lennie and they become friends, which is another (friendship).