Crooks Character Analysis Essay On Of Mice And Men

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Of Crooks and Friends: A Literary Analysis of the Character Crook In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, he stresses the impact of surroundings on human behavior and how humans react. The ranch that George and Lennie work on has several people working on it and all of them seem to be quite individual whether it is their mental state or physical state. The book demonstrates how the past of a person can affect how someone reacts and interacts in present time, along with the effects of preconceived notions toward stereotypes. Crooks s a man working on the ranch is black and Crooks demonstrates this point. Steinbeck uses the character of Crooks to show how the environment and the past of a character can adjust the way people react and …show more content…

The shift occurs when Crooks stops saying intimidating statements to Lennie and starts to reminisce about his childhood. He explains that his father told him not to talk to white kids and that as an adult, Crooks realizes why his father said that. Crooks has been talking about his past gently, but then he changes his tone: “He whined, ‘A guy goes nuts if he ain't’ got nobody. Do not make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you. ‘I tell ya,’ he cried, ‘I tell ya a guy gets lonely an he gets sick’” (Steinbeck 69). All humans need some kind of human interaction no matter how much of an introvert a person is and Crooks being the only black person at a time when segregation and racism are strongly intact is excluded and not allowed to participate in many of the things the men do. To the men, he seems distant, to them he separates himself instead of them separating him. One night when all the other men are in town Lennie gets lonely and wanders into the Crooks' room and he ends up having a conversation with him. During this conversation Crooks say. Crooks has built up a wall around himself that makes him seem cold and standoff like keeping him from interacting with the other

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