In the Passage, How Does Steinbeck Present Crooks?

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Of Mice and Men: Q-In the passage hoe does Steinbeck present Crooks? In the passage Steinbeck presents Crooks as a well educated man who is fiercely protective over his rights. In addition he is portrayed as proud yet as a lonely man. The first insight to Crooks personality comes from the possessions he owns, these possessions are extremely basic. Like the other men he owns little in the way of luxury but has life's necessities like 'several pairs of shoes' and a 'single barrelled shotgun'. This suggests that he is a practical man who also might feel he needs protection. To explain the gun shows that he feels he needs something by his side to protect him because at the time a group called the KKK would randomly come and attacking and kill you if you were black, therefore because he has a crooked back and they would usually come in numbers he feels he needs something extra to protect him from danger. The uncertainty of his life is backed up by the fact there is a 'long box filled with straw' in his room. The description places an image of a coffin in your head, this highlights this danger Crooks could be in as they already have the coffin implying there is a chance he could be killed at any moment. Steinbeck then additionally goes on to make reference to 'books' like a 'tattered dictionary'. This implies that Crooks is well educated and knows how to read. Even though this may seem a simple thing to do, in the 1930's Blacks generally didn't have the same rights to education as a white man did meaning they often went through life never learning to read and write. Therefore, the fact he has these 'books' and there is reference to a 'tattered dictionary' implies that he is self educated and first of all learnt how to say and spell these words and then learnt the meanings also. This consequently implies that Crooks is therefore a very clever man and the word
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