“Lennie dabbled his big paw in the water and wiggle his fingers so the water arose in little splashes,”
For a grown man and of his proportions, he is childlike and simple; this is seen as abnormal and because of this irregularity, Lennie finds it hard to find his place. His trust in George is unwavering and like a child, he imitates him at every opportunity. Lennie also has an insatiable need to ‘pet’ soft objects and a desire for comfort. As they walk to the ranch Lennie picks up a dead mouse. He exclaims; “ I could pet it with my thumb while we walked along,” as George confronts him. His unnatural innocence and unawareness of the cruelty of the real world makes him a target of society.
When arriving at the ranch, Lennie and George are introduced to ranch hand life in the bunkhouse by the old swamper, Candy. The most noticeable aspect about Candy’s appearance is his stump of a wrist. His physical disability means he is limited in the jobs he can undertake and is virtually useless in the eyes of an employer. Candy is excluded from the social life of the ranch-hands, by his age, his disability and demeaning job, and by his own choice.
“I ain't got the poop any more”, he says, when the inhabitants of the bunkhouse go into town on a Saturday night. His lack of status is shown when he is powerless to save his old dog from being shot. His old dog is a representation of Candy in animal form. Just as Lennie and George are dependent on each other Candy and his dog also mirror the same trait.
“Candy scratched his whiskers with his knuckles…. The dog grunted softly to himself and licked his grizzled, moth-eaten coat.”
The dog is described as being “a drag-footed old sheep-dog, grey of muzzle, and with pale, blind old eyes.” Just as Candy must have been a solid worker before his accident, the dog is useless now he is old and lame.
“That dog of Candy’s is so God dam old he can’t hardly walk. Stinks like hell too. Why’n’t you get Candy to shoot his old dog and give him one of the pups to raise up.”
The notion of ‘euthanasia’ or once a person or animal has outlived its usefulness, so therefore must be ‘got rid of’ or ‘put out of its misery’, is a recurring theme in the novel. Candy’s utmost fear is being fired or ‘canned’ and left without a source of employment or a place to live.
Curley's wife is the only woman on the ranch and unlike the others, even Lennie, she seems not to understand her limitations - or she refuses to admit them. She is a social outcast, not because of a certain disability, but because her manner and appearance is outwardly artificial. Her inappropriate dress on the ranch and her coquettish manner brand her as a “tart”.
“She had full rouged lips and wide spaced eyes heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages. She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers.”
Steinbeck makes an emphasis on the flamboyancy of her outfit and the description is less than flattering when he uses the word ‘sausages’ to describe her hair. The garish quality that is given to her by Steinbeck, makes the reader aware, that although she has no obvious faults, there is something not quite right about her.
Dreams and aspirations to go to Hollywood and be a film star prove that she is in denial about her abilities and talents. The fact that the films now required actresses to talk; means her coarse ‘nasal’ speech would be a handicap. Her naiveté shows in her belief that her mother has stolen a letter (from her “contact” in Hollywood) which was obviously never written and her immaturity appears in her instant reaction to marrying Curley. Desperate for companionship she does not readily find at home, she flirts with the ranch-hands. They are uneasy about this, as they think her to be seriously promiscuous, and are fearful of Curley's reaction. She is, perhaps, the most pathetic of all the characters.
On the night the ranch-hands go into town, we see four outsiders or misfits are left behind. Lennie seeks companionship in the form of ‘stable-buck’, Crooks; named for his crooked spine due to a work related injury. He is a proud and independent Negro bitter against racial discrimination and who is also an outcast on the ranch because of his colouring. He is segregated from all the other workers on the ranch and has become defensive and protective of his rights but is also lonely because of this.
As Lennie approaches Crooks in attempt to make friends, the stable-buck is sharp tongued and stern with him.
Crooks says sharply: “You got no right to come in my room. This here’s my room. Nobody got any right in here but me.”
Crooks is bitter, indignant, angry, and ultimately frustrated by his helplessness as the black man in a racist culture on the ranch. Wise and observant, he listens to Lennie's talk of the ‘dream’ of the farm with cynicism. Although tempted by Candy, Lennie, and George's plan to buy their own place, Crooks is constantly reminded (in this case by Curley's wife) that he is inferior to whites and, out of pride, he refuses to take part in their future farm.
It has always been the case throughout history, where many groups of people have been the target of persecution by a much larger or more dominant group, often the common people. Among these groups are or were: blacks, the disabled, women, children, and the elderly. In the environment such as the ranch in Steinbeck’s novel, these types of characters often have their own aspirations but are forced down by society and their lives are usually far from uncomplicated.
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