Of Mice and men, Analysing weak characters

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Of Mice and Men

The novel is called ‘Of mice & men’ because things can go wrong between a small mouse to an important human being. Thing can go wrong despite how hard you try.

There are two characters in this novel that I think are portrayed as being weak. One of the characters that I feel comes across as weak in the novel is Crooks. The reason being is because of how he is treated by the other characters in this novel. For example, most of the characters except for Slim refer to Crooks as a ‘Nigger’. Even though ‘Nigger’ is a racist term, it was used normally in those days. But this shows the little respect the rest of the characters had for Crooks; they could have decided to refer to him using his real name, just like Slim. The fact that they continuously call him that shows the weakness in Crook, if he had the amount of free will and power the rest had, he would have spoke up and tell them to stop calling him a ‘Nigger’.  Steinbeck may have set it out like this to show that not everyone was racist and disrespectful to whom the majority of the people thought was inferior. Slim could have been a character just like Steinbeck, he’s showing that he is not racist and is empathetic to Crook’s feelings, and is aware that despite his skin colour, he is just as superior. However, noticing this, Slim could be portrayed as weak because he didn’t speak up to defend Crooks when it came to the name calling, if he did, he probably would have been casted as a ‘Sell out’ by the other characters.

There is another incident in the novel that shows how inferior and weak Crooks is portrayed. After Curley’s wife enters the room to talk to him, Lennie and Candy, Crook’s ends up getting frustrated with Curley’s wife and starts telling her off. However, by now the readers would have thought that Crook’s is finally standing up for himself and defending himself, but this all changes in the space of a few minutes. For example,   Curley’s wife retaliates and say’s ‘Listen, Nigger, you know what I can do to you if you open your trap?’  ‘Well, keep your place Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easily it ain’t even funny’.  ‘Strung up on a tree’ meant to be lynched; this shows that she had the power to get Crooks lynched, even for the pettiest things. So even though Crooks was speaking the truth,  him speaking up could get him into trouble, he can’t win, him staying quiet and saying the things the other characters wants to hear makes him look weak, but even when he does speak up against problems, he is still portrayed as weak. After Curley’s wife mentions this, the narration says ‘Crooks seemed to grow smaller’ the use of the letters ‘Er’ shows that he was already ‘small’ but by Curley’s wife mentioning Lynching, it made him ‘smaller’, weaker than he already is.

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One more factor that shows Crooks is weak, is by the structure of the chapter, the chapter starts and ends the same. On page 99, it say’s ‘Crooks sat on his bunk [...] he held a bottle of liniment and with the other hand, rubbed his spine’. The chapter also ends the same way. This shows that the way Crooks is living is never ending, it’s a cyclical feature, and there is no hope for him. Also, because Steinbeck kept on referring to his spine, shows that even though Crooks does have hopes and dreams, him being black and being ...

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