Crooks, named for his crooked back, is one of the most vulnerable characters on the ranch, mostly due to his race combined with general racist attitudes at the time. He lives by himself because he is the only black man on the ranch, and he has been so beaten down by loneliness and prejudicial treatment of that he is now suspicious of any kindness he receives. Crooks is painfully aware that his skin color is all that keeps him separate in this culture. This outsider status causes him to lament his loneliness, but he also delights in seeing the loneliness of others, perhaps because misery loves company. When Lennie arrives at his room, he turns him away, hoping to prove a point that if he, as a black man, is not allowed in white men’s houses, then whites are not allowed in his, but his desire for company ultimately wins out and he invites Lennie to sit with him.
His aggressive nature and unhindered anger towards the world makes it difficult for readers to like him or connect with him. However, it is difficult to define Bigger as a purely evil character due to the circumstances surrounding him and the situations he was forced into. Through Bigger’s moral ambiguity, Richard Wright is able not only to make readers aware of a problem in this country, but also to prompt them to put effort into fixing it. Life was very difficult for Bigger, being a poor black boy without a father growing up in the 1930s. Racial prejudice was running rampant throughout the country, and there was an especially deep distrust of black men and their rumored desire for white women.
As the novel goes on we see that Crooks accepts things the way they overall are. Crooks doesn’t talk to the other men and they don’t talk to him. This causes the greatest amount of loneliness in Crooks out of all the characters. When Crooks states “I tell ya a guy get to lonely an he gets sick” ( Steinbeck; 73). This quote shows that rejection can cause most people to become crazy, as it did to Crooks.
The loneliest person on the ranch has to be Crooks, who suffers from extreme loneliness because he is black and he is living in a ranch and the surrounding area which is very racist. He lives by himself, because the other men do not like him. He does not take part in any of the social activities in the ranch and is left out completely. He is so lonely that he turns to books, which soon becomes boring and
Although he doesn’t know it, we see his only friends at the stock market saying they would only go to Scrooge’s funeral ‘for the buffet.’ This shows that he is totally alone in the world and we therefore feel sorry for him. At the Beetling shop, people haggle over his possessions. This shows us that everything he worked and lived for does him no good in after life and cannot buy him mourners to keep the rats from ‘gnawing at the wall.’ We also feels sympathy as his debtors are happy to see him dead as they no longer have to pay him. If Scrooge understood, this would pain him and make him feel very alone with no one who cares for him. We, the reader, feel a lot of sympathy when he visits the Cratchit’s as he sees that Tiny Tim has died.
Crooks, a black stable-hand, is segregated because of the pigment of his skin. Steinbeck depicts discrimination through Crooks’ isolation from other men, his desire for friendship, and his way of turning his vulnerability into a weapon. First, Steinbeck demonstrates Crooks’ loneliness through his separation from the other men on the ranch. Initially, the other ranch hands discriminate Crooks because of his disability that sets him apart from them. Steinbeck describes Crooks’ living condition to be, “For being alone…Crooks could leave his things about, and being a stable buck and a cripple, he was more permanent than the other men” (67).
Both honest mistakes that he didn’t even know he made. The ignorance shown towards Lennie in the novel was due to the time period and the people’s lack of knowledge. People in the story like “The boss” just thought that Lennie wasn’t smart because he just didn’t talk much unless it was to his best friend George. There was ignorance in Raymond because his brother thought that he could remove Ray from his schedules at his home and take him with him. The Ignorance was that Ray needed those schedules or he will have a fit.
Lennie is considered as an outsider because of his mental disability. Crooks is considered an outsider because he is an old black man whom back is hurt and can’t really stand up straight the reason why he’s even working in the ranch is because he’s the only one who knows how to keep the stables in control. Candy is considered an outsider because he’s an old man with one of his hands disabled. Curley’s wife was considered as an outsider
The other men would not allow him to use his feet due to Crooks’ back but thought it perfectly fine to be fighting him. When Crooks comes into the novel he is described as a “lean negro head, lined with pain,” this is important because it’s the introduction of the many pains which Crooks has. Crooks is both in emotional and physical pain. The emotional pain which Crooks carries with him is due to his loneliness; his isolation from man is causing him to go mad, “guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody”. In isolation from the other men Crooks begins to doubt what he sees.
What is loneliness? Loneliness is when you have nobody there for you when you feel like it’s only you in the world and you keep everything inside you. Of Mice and Men, a novel by John Steinbeck, relates to loneliness because of the character Crooks. Crooks is discriminated against everyday. Everyone stays away from him because he’s black.