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Racism in the grapes of wrath
How does john steinbeck engage the reader with the character of crooks
Racial Discrimination in Literature
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Recommended: Racism in the grapes of wrath
Crooks is a an educated yet bitter man who appears to almost be angry at the world, he is an African American who is discriminated against because of his race, which causes him to be lonely and aggressive to others at the ranch. Crook’s real name is not known through the story and he is just known as “Crooks” because he has a crooked back that he got when a horse had kicked his back. When Lennie meets Crooks we get a vivid sight of the racial discrimination he faces and how deeply it affects his life. He lives alone in a small room because no one wants to be with him due to his race, which makes him feel isolated and separate from all of the other men. Crooks is seen taking pleasure from seeing others in harm and being lonely when we read that he is taking amusement in telling Lennie that George could’ve possibly …show more content…
Since Lennie only cares about petting soft things she feels as if no one can understand her and how she feels. George keeps talking about how he likes to pet soft things so she mentions how soft her hair is and how she takes care of it. Lennie keeps petting and touching her hair, progressively getting rougher. Curley’s wife is scared at this point and feels as if Lennie is going to harm her, so she tries screaming and fighting Lennie back, which ends up in failure as she is killed by Lennie’s brute strength and her neck is snapped. Curley’s wife lived a lonely life, from the start to the beginning, meeting an unruly demise by the hands of Lennie. Even in death, however, she still causes trouble and upon the finding of her corpse, the ranch hands go on a man hunt to kill Lennie. Curley’s wife can be seen as a representation of Eve from the tales of the bible, as she shows that women can turn the world upside down, Eve brought the garden of eden to ruin, while Curley’s wife brought the dream of the farm George, Lennie, and Candy to
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...
In this portion of the book, the author provides a precise characterization of Crooks. The stable buck takes “pleasure in his torture” (71) of Lennie. He suggests many scenarios that make Lennie miserable such as “Well s’pose, jus’s’pose he [George] don’t come back” (71) “s’pose he gets killed or hurt so he can’t come back” (71). Crooks’ suppositions are a sign of meanness, they demonstrate that loneliness has twisted his conscience. He also behaves this way because since “he ain’t got nobody” (72), he is jealous of Lennie’s friendship with George. Crooks suffers from loneliness. He has no one to turn to, and to be near him. He says it himself that “a guy needs somebody---to be near him” (72), or else “he ge...
Crooks talks with Lennie in the book, "Crooks laughed again. ‘A guy can talk to you an’ be sure you won’t
The moment that Curley's wife was introduced, an ill feeling overcomes the atmosphere indicating that Lennie will be getting into a mess with her. George states in the very beginning that he is always getting into mishaps, "You do bad things and I got to get you out," (p.11). The situation in Weed involved a girl and Curley's wife just happened to be the only girl on the ranch. Connecting ends with ends, there is a sense of insecurity between these two people. Later on, there was an intimation that she was going to be killed by Lennie because he killed the mouse and the puppy, leading to bigger deaths such as Curley's wife.
The harsh reality is one which hit everyone in America in the 1930. People found work hard to find and crime was on the uprise. This meant, unfortunately, that innocent people were the easy prey and, as we see in the Of Mice and Men, there were plenty of characters that were easy prey. Of Mice and Men characters have and do thing that make them vulnerable in way which do cause trouble. In this essay, that harsh reality and easy prey will be shown through to see which characters are the most vulnerable.
Crooks expressed feelings of loneliness through out Of Mice and Men. Crooks? loneliness is caused because he is black, at the time the story took place there was racism. Since Crooks is black he wasn?t able to socialize with the white men. When Steinbeck describes all of Crooks? possessions, it shows that Crooks has been at the ranch a long time and that his possessions are all the he cares about. In Crooks? room, Lennie comes to talk to him. Crooks is cautious at first, this was from the years of racism that Crooks endured, he learned not to associate with white folk.
This book depicts her as property of Curley’s because she is never given a name beside “Curley’s wife” or “Tart”. Curley’s wife was a woman who had aspiring dreams to be in movies and when that dream ended, she settled with marrying Curley. Curley’s wife shows abuse of power because since she is married to a person who is influential on the ranch, that makes her somewhat powerful, she uses her femininity and authority to manipulate others. She is unhappy with her marriage and is lonely so she goes out to the ranch to talk to the other guys, which gets Curley paranoid. When she is being forced to leave Crooks’s room, she retaliates by telling him, “Well, you keep your place then, nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.” When Candy tried to stand up for Crooks, she made sure they all knew their place, “Tell an’ be damned,” she cried, “Nobody’s listen to you an’ you know it. Nobody’s listen to you.” (79-80) There is a whole food chain in the ranch and Lennie, Candy and Crooks are at the bottom while Curley’s wife is at the top. On the other hand, she talks to Lennie because of his mental incapacity to know what’s wrong and right. He’s easier to allure in so she would have someone to talk to. Although Lennie wasn’t allowed to interact with
“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.
Crooks is an African American stable-hand on the ranch, who because he is black is very isolated and lonely. He is the only black man on the ranch and is segregated from the others on multiple occasions. All Crooks wants is to be able to do daily activities with the other ranch workers, even simply a game of cards. However, since Crooks is black, he is not allowed into the bunkhouse, and is forced to live alone in the barn. He wants to feel like someone cares about him, "Don't make no difference who the guy is, long’s he's with you. I tell you, a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick." (80) Lennie finds Crooks one night in his room when he is playing with the new puppies on the ranch. After Crooks tries to play a joke on Lennie, Crooks realizes that Lennie is slow and thinks like a child, therefore can’t understand that he is just playing a joke on him. Crooks then invites Lennie to stay with him for a while, and forgets about his loneliness for one night. Crooks looks to Lennie for companionship; he sees that si...
Throughout the novel she is known as a tramp and flirts heavily with lennie when he's in the barn petting his puppy. Curley's wife puts lennie's hand on her head to touch and feel how soft her hair but she didn't know how bad of an idea that was. Curley's wife started to get mad at lennie for touching her hair too much and starting yelling at lennie for him to let go. lennie panicked and grabbed her hair and couldn't let go because when lennie panics he will not let go. lennie gets mad and twist her around while muffling her mouth and starts shaking her and breaks her neck. lennie thought for a second…..then he knew he had to go to the brush and wait for
Crooks is the last and final character shown in the novel Of Mice and Men and, shows that dreams don’t always come true. This novel took place back when race was a huge thing back in the day. He was treated much different than the other workers, in the novel. The different race affected his dream in the story he was treated like a nobody, because of his race. “I ain't wanted in my bank house, and you ain’t wanted in my room. The quote shows that crooks is treated different, by no one wants to be around
Racial discrimination has been around for a long time, judging people for the color of their skin. Crooks is affected by this because he is black. Blacks in that time were thought as lesser than the white people. The racial discrimination affects Crooks' life in only negative ways. He is plagued by loneliness because of the color of his skin. His lack of company drives him crazy. Only when Lennie comes in to his room does he feel less lonely. He talked of his loneliness using a hypothetical scenario of George leaving Lennie. Crooks' responds to this discrimination by staying in his barn and being secluded. He doesn't want anyone to be in there but deep down he does so he can have some company. He isn't wanted in the bunk house or to play cards with the others because he is black. This effected the story by letting people walk all over him, letting them think they can do whatever they want, and ultimately making the people think they have a lot of power when really they do not.
Crooks is a symbol of how society treats the disabled and African Americans. Having to deal with the loneliness and the segregation that the ranch members put forth on him. he confides in Lennie “A guy needs somebody- to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody.”(Steinbeck 72). Unfortunately, Because of the amount of melanin in his skin he is shunned and treated like an animal. He sleeps in the barnhouse, works on the land, and comes back to his stable. When Candy mentions the dream to Crooks he temporality thinks that he could call something his own like they are. Which is something very few African Americans had because less than seventy years before African Americans themselves, were property. Curly’s wife then enters the room to Crooks vexation. When he tells her to leave, she replies scornfully “Listen Nigger… You know what I could do?....Yes, ma’am.” Crooks says. She continues to make herself bigger and him ever so small, “I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny.” (Steinbeck 80-81). Knowing the truth in her words not only Crooks but Candy and Lennie dwindle in their comments to get her out of Crooks’ room. Interestly enough though, only Lennie, the flawed human is the only one to not see crooks color.
Crooks is segregated from the rest of the men because he is black. Because of his race, Crooks is always in kind of a teasing mood, he takes advantage of all the time he has with the other workers because he has to sleep in a different bunk than them. An example of him taking advantage of that time is when he teases Lennie about how George isn’t coming back for him until, “Suddenly Lennie's eyes centered and grew quiet, and mad. He stood up and walked dangerously toward Crooks. "Who hurt George?" he demanded.” Then Crooks kind of backed off of Lennie, but not until he was satisfied with screwing with Lennie until he bursted. I think that if Crooks was white he wouldn’t of acted this way. If he was white he wouldn’t have been segregated. If Crooks wasn’t segregated he wouldn’t feel the need to take all of this “teasing attitude” out all at once, he would do this all the time with less intensity than he did with Lennie in that