I am going to look at how Steinbeck encourages us to sympathise with the two outcasts- Crooks and Curly's wife

Authors Avatar

Crooks and Curly’s wife

T

hroughout the journey of Mice and Men we have built up relationships with the characters and we have travelled through their hopes and dreams. In this essay I am going to look at how Steinbeck encourages us to sympathise with the two outcasts- Crooks and Curly’s wife. Today, in our society there are many different cultures and various walks of life. I feel that if you are an outcast you invite sympathy and therefore people will automatically feel sorry for you. In this novel Crooks is separated from the rest of the men, as he is black. It is not acceptable for racism to be carried out. No matter what colour your skin is, you still have the right to have the opportunity to life your life in peace rather than in fear of being attacked because of your ethnic group. On the other hand Curly’s wife is an outcast because she is a woman. I strongly believe that women and men are equally important and they both have qualities that can bind together to make a wonderful marriage. God made men and women with similarities and differences but in the end they are both equal. Therefore Curly’s wife deserved to be treated with courtesy and respect instead of being referred to as “Curly’s wife” and “a tart”.

Join now!

        Crooks is described as a “busted back nigger” so this lets us sympathise with him because he is not only a victim of racism but he has a disability too. He is treated like an animal “his bunk was a long box filled with straw,” so he didn’t have a simple necessity in his life. However, Curly’s wives appearance is quite different as she is brought across as “heavily made up” this implies that she is immoral and that she is only around the men craving intimacy. Later in the novel we find out that this is not true and ...

This is a preview of the whole essay