How are the themes of prejudice and violence explored in the novel?
There is prejudice and violence throughout the novel. Very few characters have the relationship that Lennie and George enjoy: One based on friendship, talking and support. Most characters are in conflict with one another and the threat of violence hangs heavy throughout. One of the reasons that some characters get into violent situations is because of their prejudices.
The most obvious example of prejudice is the covert, casual racism against Crooks. He is just a “nigger” and is of very little consequence to any of the men. Though very little aggressive intent accompanies this racism, there is a story about how one of the hands “took after the nigger” at a Christmas past. The story is told with obvious enjoyment and it illustrates both the racism and the enjoyment of violence which exists on the ranch.
Crooks also suffers at the hands of Curley’s wife and again there is a threat violence which accompanies her racist outbursts. “listen nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so fast it ain’t even funny.” She is annoyed at him for asking her to leave his room and her first thoughts are violent, racist ones. Though she has very little power in the ranch, she uses what little she has to stir up fear of attack in Crooks’s mind. That black people are the most powerless is emphasised at this point in he novel. Crooks is presented as a sympathetic character and Steinbeck’s intention was to illustrate the predicament not just of ranch hands but of black people at that time. There is also prejudice against women, in the form of Curley’s wife, throughout the novel. She is described by the men as “a tart” and “jailbait” and no attempt is made by the men to get to know her. Even her husband seems to have contempt for her. He goes into town on a Saturday night with the boys intending to get drunk and visit the “cat house” where he might sleep with another woman. The prejudice against Curley’s wife might be said to be specific to the men in this novel, however it is not being suggested by Steinbeck that all women are “nothing but trouble”- rather that the specific woman portrayed here causes the tragic and of both her own life and Lennie’s. The depiction of Crooks’s situation seems to illustrate a more general point: that black people were the victims of casual and habitual racism.
