Of Mice And Men Crooks Marginalized

Marginalizing is still stuck in our current world. Pushing and looking down at people has stayed around for hundreds of years. The rich look down on the poor and the high ranked look down on the lower ranked. When blacks were segregated from the society, all of the whites were considered a higher rank and the proper thing to was push blacks away. It has only been 54 years since segregation has been outlawed and permanently stopped. In Of Mice and Men, the experiences and actions of many characters reveal that weakness causes people to be marginalized.

One of the first things that causes Candy to be marginalized is his crippled dog. Candy’s dog is, according to Carlson, old and useless. The dog isn't necessarily helpful on anyone's standards,

but has a relationship with Candy. “The old man squirmed uncomfortably. “‘Well—hell! I had him so long. Had him since he was a pup.’” (p.44) What Candy is trying to say to Carlson is that his dog is his only friend. Without it he would be alone. Candy's oldness all so contributes to him being marginalized. “Old Candy”(p.43) is how Steinbeck referees to him, not the actual dialog. This is showing the him being old, makes people think of him as unable. Candy's old age also causes him to be pushed away. “He pointed with his right arm , and out of the sleeve came a round stick-like wrist, but no hand.”(p.18) Candy’s hand was destroyed by a machine earlier in his life.
Crooks is a black farmer that is put down and pushed away because of his color and race.

His race is defiantly a key factor. When Lennie asked Crooks “Why ain’t you wanted?” (p.68) Crooks replied with “ ‘Cause I'm black.” (p.68) Crooks him self as realized that he is marginalized for this reason. The dialog also calls him a “nigger” showing how the rest of the people would have looked at him. In addition to being black he is also lonely. The loneliness generates from his race and is carried over to his farm life. “ ‘Long as you won't get out and leave me alone, you might as well set down.”(p.69) Crooks is emitting the sense that he hasn't had a friendship in so long that he is forgetting what it is like when someone is nice. The third reason is his crooked back. His crooked back holds him back because he is not able to do the physical work that the others are capable of

doing.
The final person that represents the marginalizing shown in the book is Curley’s wife.

Curley’s wife is margined because she is a woman. In Of Mice and Men women are looked down apron and are put at low standards. After she died Candy said to her “You wasn't no good. You ain't no good now, you lousy tart.”(p.95). The second reason is because she liked to flirt with the other men on the farm. “She put her hands behind her back and leaned against the door frame so that her body was thrown forward.”(p.31) After she did this Lennie called her pretty and George responded with “Don't take a look at that bitch. I don't care what she says or what she does. I seen ‘em poison before, but I never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her.”(p.32) George is telling Lennie to stay away or he will be drawn into a trap. The final reason why she is pushed away is the fact that she tries to be bigger than the other weak ones. “‘I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny.’ Crooks had reduced himself to nothing.”(p.81) She threatened to hang Crooks because he was black, this made him an easy

target.
Susan Jacoby once said that “The forgetting of the history of marginalized groups is both a cause and effect of their marginalization.” In this sentence she is saying that when we forget about history the groups of people the have been pushed away, it is the reason for them being marginalized in the first place. In Of Mice and Men, Candy’s back story is not shared. This leads us to believe that his history was forgotten in the same way that Susan Jacoby talks about marginalization.