The essence of isolation and dishonesty. Have you ever imagined a world without any family or your annoying friends texting you every second. In today’s technologically advanced world the answer is probably no, because communication via technology is ubiquitous, whether you live in the deserts of Africa or New York city. But this technology did not exist in 1929 during the era of depression. John Steinbeck’s Of mice and men depicts solitude and the distrustful nature of mankind during the Great Depression. This sense of isolation is best portrayed by Crooks and Candy. Crooks was excluded from the group and had his own barn which was his only freedom. When Crooks said “Maybe you can see now. You got George. You know he’s goin’ to come back. S’pose you didn’t have nobody. S’pose you couldn’t go into the bunkhouse and play rummy ’cause you was black. How’d you like that? ” (Steinbeck 72), he wants to seek someone’s company like Lennie has George’s. Crooks threatened Lennie into the fact that George might not come back because he wanted Lennie to feel loneliness, but to his disappointment he was in vain. Crooks also conveys through his body language and the way he speaks that he doesn’t want to be excluded from the others and wants to participate in all the activities with them. When George, Lennie, and Candy planned to buy a house …show more content…
and set up the garden they had come to an agreement that the plan would stay a secret. Candy revealed their plans to Crooks when he said “We got most of it. Just a little bit more to get. Have it all in a month. George got the land all picked out, too” (Steinbeck 76). This revelation proved that no one was to be trusted. Even though George emphasized on keeping their plan a secret, Candy was too excited to share with Lennie, his calculations for the rabbits. When Crooks scoffed at Candy’s dream of having a house, Candy was angry and told Crooks that their plan, unlike the others was well plotted. While these men were quarreling, Curley’s wife passed by Crooks’ barn.
Candy anticipated that she had come to ask for Curley. He sharply answered that Curley wasn’t there and told her to be loyal to her husband. She responded to him by saying “Think I’m gonna stay in that two-by-four house and listen how Curley’s gonna lead with his left twict, and then bring in the ol’ right cross?” (Steinbeck 78). She seems to has been forcefully married to Curley since she is always roaming around searching for company. This gives us an impression that the couple does not get along well, and neither of them attempts to talk about the other’s
interests.
Steinbeck clearly shows that Crooks never has any say on the ranch. No one cares about him. He’s just a “negro stable buck” (66). In this novella, No one ever talks to him except for candy. Lennie finally finds himself going into his room. While in there they speak about racial profiling. Crooks tell lennie that he’s the only African Americans on the ranch. He tells Lennie how he’s “alone out here at night” (73). He has nobody to talk to all he does is read books and think. The people on the ranch care less about his needs and wants, all they want him to do is to continue his work...
There are moments in which they are driven out of an emotional need to show immortalization to George or show deference to him. In the altercation between Lennie and Crooks, the controversy of companionship is raised. Crooks lives a life alone and he possesses a sense of enviousness towards the friendship that Lennie have a hand in with George. When Crooks wanted to make his point, he talks to Lennie about how his (Lennie's) world would fundamentally change if George left and went out on his own: Crooks advances this in discussing with Lennie the assumption such an action, suggesting that George might simply fall victim to getting hurt. However, Lennie paraphrases this vision as a threat of harm against George: At this moment, Lennie threatens Crooks through body language and voice inflection because of his motivation to chaperon George. The motivation of bulwarking George initiates his actions of becoming aggressive, something that Crooks immediately realizes in backing down from his initial stance. Lennie's motivations to champion George inspire his actions in wishing to do harm to anyone or anything that would cause danger to George.
Earlier on the page Crooks is saying to Lennie what if George didn’t come back, what if you didn’t have nobody. Crooks is saying all these what if’s because he doesn’t have nobody by his side all the time. To describe this quote Crooks is talking to Lennie telling him that he doesn’t have any body and that lennie is lucky to have somebody that cares for him. “S’pose you didn’t have nobody. S’pose you couldn’t go into the bunk house and play rummy ‘cause you was black. How’d you like that?”(68). Crooks feels that he doesn’t have nobody so he is explaining how he has things for his life and wishes he could have somebody who cared about him in his life. No body in the book really cares for Crooks because he is different so everyone is in the bunk house except for him playing rummy while he is sitting inside his room all by himself. To let the reader know how Crooks fells Steinbeck uses characterization to show how Crooks thinks and feels. I this quote Crooks is talking about himself and explaining to lennie what it is like having nobody around you. “Sometimes he gets thinkin’, an’ he got nothing to tell him what 's so an’ what ain’t so. Maybe if he sees something’, he don’t know whether it 's tight or not. He can’t turn to some other guy and ask him if he sees it too. He can 't tell. He got nothing to measure buy”(73). Crooks badly wants someone
Lennie asks George to “tell it again” often, which usually follows “ ‘Come on George. Tell me. Please George, Like you done before.’ ‘You get a kick outta that, don’t you? Awright, I’ll tell you, and then we’ll eat our supper…’ George’s voice became deeper. He repeated his words rhythmically as though he had said them many times before” (13). In this quote, Lennie beseeches George to tell the story like he always does, and George obliges. Although George may think in the back of his head that his story will never happen, Lennie’s innocence silences that thought and persuades George to think that someday he might be living as he said he would be. Crooks responds to Lennie and Candy once he realizes that they were serious when they talked about the land that they would live on. “…If you…guys would want a hand to work for nothing--just his keep, why I’d come an’ lend a hand. I ain’t so crippled I can’t work like a son-of-a-bitch if I want to” (76). In these lines, Crooks wants to become part of the dream because of its innocence, which convinces Crooks that he would no longer be lonely once he finds himself on the cottage with everyone else. Lennie’s innocence blinds everyone with the idea that they can change their future, which tragically ends by Lennie’s
Candy?s disability separates him from society, an example of Curley being set aside is when everybody else goes to town he is left in the barn with Crooks, Lennie, and Curley?s wife. Candy?s only friendship was with his old, smelly dog. Candy?s dog was a symbol of himself (old, and useless). When Carlson kills Candy?s dog, he kills Candy on the inside as well. Curley?s wife had the most pathetic and depressing life.
“A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. 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.” (Page 72-73) As you can see, Crooks also spends most of his time alone because he is black. He is not allowed to enter the bunk house nor go to town with the guys. He is not allowed to enter the bunk house, he is not allowed to go to town with the guys and nobody likes him because he is black. This shows that he has no friendship and his whole life is filled with loneliness. His case is different from Lennie’s.
If George wouldn’t have met Lennie, he would be a drunk in a whorehouse dying of cirrhosis. If Lennie didn’t meet George he would of died soon after his aunt did, because he would either have got himself in a bind with no one to help him or he would of simply wondered off and died of loneliness. & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; Crooks suffers from loneliness, because he is black, not because he is an unfriendly person. Crooks, though, may seem mean, but he is just tired of being rejected and disrespected by everybody around him. Crooks has a horrible life. He will never have a companion or anybody that will respect him unless he meets another black person.
Curley’s wife is given a reputation of causing trouble between other characters from different characters in the novel. There is no evidence of her living up to all of the reputation in the novel. Candy says “Well she got the eye” which could have many meanings and then he backs that up with “I seen her give Slim the eye” and finally he says “Well I think Curley’s married…a tart.” This explains his views on Curley’s wife. And when she dies he calls her a ...
...s born right here in California”. This shows that Crooks does not seem himself as a Negro, he sees himself as an equal because he was born here, where they are born. Crooks tells Lennie about his past; how he use to play with other white kids and never knew why his father did not like it. But as he got older, he realised and has hated white people ever since, because of their treatment towards him. As Crooks is reminded of his hatred towards white people, who tries to show Lennie how it feels to be lonely in an injurious manner. As Crooks knows that Lennie does not understand anything that is being said, he takes this and uses it against Lennie. “His excitement had increased George can tell you screwy things, and it don't matter". Crooks tries to get Lennie to feel what it is like to be alone, but shortly after, he becomes threaten by Lennie physical power over him.
I have been analysing the novella ‘Of Mice and men’ by John Steinbeck, which was published in 1937. Steinbeck wrote the novel based on his own experiences as a bindle stiff in the 1920’s, around the same time when the great Wall Street crash happened, causing an immense depression in America. Throughout the novel he uses a recurring theme of loneliness in his writing, which may have reflected his own experiences at this time. This is evident in his writing by the way he describes the characters, setting and language in the novel.
Most people who have true friendships are the same and want the same outcome even though that’s what George and Lennie wanted. They were different because George was smart and Lennie had a lack of mental intelligence. On page 35 Slim says, “Ain’t many guys travel around together.” In this time period most men were independent and did stuff on their own but since Lennie needed George on the daily bases due to his lack of intelligence, that’s what kept them together. Also the way they worked together and how they had each other’s back through whatever. On page 72 Crooks said gently, “Maybe you can see now. You got George. You know he’s goin’ to come back. S’pose you didn’t have nobody.....A guy needs somebody to be near him.” Crooks was lonely because he was the only black man and he was always excluded. Crooks wanted a friendship with somebody like George and Lennie had. Crooks noticed how George and lennie had a true friendship because they always came back to each other unlike his
After Candy enters Crooks’ room, Curley’s wife enters the room also and tries to hold a conversation with
In the middle of the story, almost everyone at the farm went to the city to hang out, but the outsiders were left behind. Lennie and Crooks were some of those outsiders. Lennie went to go talk to Crooks being that he was lonely. During their conversation, Crooks said, This shows
When we first meet their characters in the beginning of the story, they share their future ideas with one another. George first says “We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us” and Lennie goes on to say “Because… because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you.” Later on in the story Lennie and George get to know the other workers on the ranch and find that they are all dealing with loneliness. Crooks is one of the many characters who doesn’t have the luxury of companionship. “I said s’pose George went into town tonight and you never heard from him no more” Crooks says to Lennie. “George wouldn’t do nothing like that. I been with George a long time. He’ll come back tonight” Lennie replies. Lennie has faith in George, because of their strong bond, others on the farm
In a perfect world, everyone is honest all the time. Therefore, everyone could trust each other wholeheartedly and never have to worry about the many forms of dishonesty. However, in this imperfect world, people are dishonest and many cannot trust each other. People find themselves doing whatever it takes to get ahead in life, even if there could be consequences. Often enough, their crooked behavior will begin school so they can make the grade. When students find themselves out in the real world, they employ unscrupulous tactics in order to gain promotions and a pay raise. Those who have been successful with their devious actions end up attempting to use them in their relationships. Of course, there are always consequences that vary in their