Crooks is forced into isolation and loneliness because of the colour of his skin. As Crooks himself says to Lennie "S'pose you couldn't go into the bunkhouse and play rummy `cause you was black... a guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody". This is the reason he is so desperate for Lennie to stay and talk to him, and is so overjoyed after spending years of near complete isolation to find that Lennie will talk to him despite his race.
When Lennie comes to pet the puppies, not even realizing that Crooks' room is `out of bounds', Crooks instantly becomes defensive and uncivil "I ain't wanted in the bunk room and you ain't wanted in my room" but Lennie is completely without prejudice " Why ain't you wanted" he asks. Crooks retaliates to this with: "Cause I'm black, they play cards in there but I can't play because I'm black. They say I stink. Well I tell you, all of you stink to me" This line showing that Crooks desperately wants to join in, be accepted, but because of his colour he can't and so he feels the only way he can make himself feel better is to cut himself off further.
When Crooks realizes that Lennie means no harm he invites him to " Come on in and set a while" Lennie begins to talk about George and his dream, it makes Crooks think of his childhood which he looks on as a kind of paradise. "The white kids come to play at our place, an' sometimes I went to play with them and some of them were pretty nice. My ol' man didn't like that. I never knew till long later why he didn't like that. But I know now". Crooks' didn't experience much racism in his childhood, making whats happening now even worse.
Crooks is fascinated by the strength of the friendship of Lennie and George, especially how close they are. Crooks said, "Well, s'pose, jus' s'pose he don't come back. What'll you do then?" Crooks asks these questions because he does not have any friends, and wouldn't know how losing them unexpectedly would feel. He was curious about the friendship of Lennie and George, noticing that Lennie is retarded, he takes advantage of this situation to "torture" him mentally, to make him feel better and ease the pain of having other reject him "Crooks' face lighted with pleasure at his torture" he also does this to ease his jealousy towards the friendship Lennie has, but that he, Crooks, will probably never have. He wants the people to feel the way that he does, completely alone.
Crooks goes on to talk about his loneliness " `A guy needs somebody to be near him' He whined:' 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' he cried `I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick'" Crooks is looking for sympathy, he is so lonely even to the point to saying that loneliness can make you ill.
George continues to talk about his dream. Crooks, having been on the ranch for quite a while, has witnessed a lot of people with the same dream, he ridicules it "Nobody ever gets to heaven, and nobody never gets no land" but when Candy comes in and backs up what George has been saying he begins to believe in the dream "If you...guys want a hand to work for nothing just his keep, why I'd come and lend a hand" Crooks sees the dream as his escape from what he is living in, somewhere like his childhood where his colour wouldn't be an issue.
Most of the men on the ranch don't like or socialize with Crooks but would not go out of their way to insult him. Curley's wife on the other hand is rude without excuse. " `Listen, Nigger' , she said. `You know what I can do to you if you open your trap'" She abuses her position and has no respect for him at all, she doesn't even refer to him by his name, looking down on him. It is attitudes like hers that have turned him into the bitter man he has become "Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego-nothing to arouse either like or dislike"
Steinbeck created the character Crooks to show what racism is like and how terrible it can be. He wanted people to know what kind of effect it had on someone and how they are just the same as others.
