Crooks' Importance In Of Mice And Men

Crooks’ importance in “Of Mice and Men”

In “Of Mice and Men” Crooks is a black stable back segregated from the rest of the men on the ranch because of the fact that he is black. Crooks’ name suggests that there is something physically wrong with him. His physical disability is one of the many ways that he suffers on the ranch. We see Crooks mostly in chapter four. He is not shown much in the first three paragraphs and this indicates his position in society as very low because he is not noticed, and therefore is not important.

At the begin of chapter four we see Crooks in a room of his own from this we see he is separated from all the other men. His room is simple and small to suit his needs:

“Crooks’ bunk was a long box filled with hay”

The fact that his room is so basic shows that he is lower than rest of the men on the ranch. Although that he is seen as less of a person, he looks after his room which shows he is “a proud, aloof man.”

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Although he is separated from the other men, he still has many personal possessions. Like the other men on the ranch his possessions say a lot about him. In his room he has “rubber boots”, “a big alarm clock”, and “a shot gun” which shows that although he is a cripple he is very active and practical. He also has many tools; here John Steinback is trying to show that although he is black he is very skilled and capable with his hands. This medicine is a symbol of his life time worth of work and unlike other men he permanent on the ranch.

As he is black he does not have much of a relationship with any of the other characters, because of this he finds it shocking that Lennie enters his room. He says:

“You go on get outta my room. I ain’t wanted in the bunk house, and you ain’t wanted in my room”

Here we see that Crooks knows about his rights and that he has accepted that he is discriminated against because of his colour and because of this he has learnt to treat white people how they treat him.

When Crooks finally lets Lennie into his room , he finds that Lennie is a weak character:

“S’pose George don’t come back no more”

Here we see that Crooks is very smart and that he can sense that Lennie is very venerable. He uses Lennie as his act to white people as he knows that he can get through to Lennie’s weakness:

“Crooks face lightened with pleasure in torture”

Crooks find the fact that he can get to Lennie slightly rewarding considering that fact he has suffered by white people all his life. In the book Crooks is much like a symbol for all black people in that time, from him we get a sense of how all black people were treated:

“This is just a nigger talkin’, an a busted-back nigger. So it don’t mean nothing”

Crooks knows that he will never get a chance to speak freely and that his voice does not count as much around the ranch, like most black people of that period.

Crooks’ like most men on the ranch is relatively lonely:

“I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick”

Here we see Crooks confiding in Lennie as he has no one else to confide in and we also see that Crooks is happy to talk to Lennie because he does not have much contact with any one on the ranch. When Candy enters his room he is happy to have some one else to talk to but he does not show this:

“It was difficult to conceal his pleasure with anger”

Crooks does not want to show them he likes the attention because he does not want them to get the better of him, this is because he has already suffered too much at the hands of white people.

We can tell that Crooks’ dreams have been shattered because of the life he has faced and because of this reason he rejects Lennie’s dream:

At the end of chapter four we see him once again rejecting the dream as he has been hurt by Curley’s wife. We also see that he is rubbing liniment on his back as he was at the start of the chapter this indicates to us that he realises that nothing has changed and that he will always be at the bottom of society because of his disability as well as his colour.

Peer Reviews

Here's what a star student thought of this essay

sydneyhopcroft

20th of Feb 2012

Quality of writing

The Quality of Written Communication is fine. The use of speech marks, full stops and commas convey accurately the intention of the candidate, though a few more adventurous punctuation points could improve the answer by showing to the examiner that the candidate has the ability to write with confidence, but other than that this is a very well-written piece.

Level of analysis

The Level of Analysis of the importance of Crooks' character gets off the a flying start, instantly diving into the deep end of the answer and explaining that Crooks' is used as a method of conveying the harshly unjust and uncivilised treatment of blacks in America during The Great Depression. The candidate would've strengthened this Point still by mentioning how, when work was so sparse and very little money was to be found, there was an even greater resentment to black people, as white people felt to be unfairly treated when jobs they could be doing were given to black men. Another Point the candidate makes is how the farm is a symbol of a hierarchy representative of society at the time, also noting the Crooks' involvement at the bottom "shows that he is lower than rest of the men on the ranch". The best thing about this essay is is how the candidate hones in on Chapter 4 (whilst very diligently noting how Steinbeck refers to him last in the character descriptions, showing his low importance) where we see inside Crooks' room. We get a feel for his character as what he stands for. Perhaps a more explicit comment could be made about the fact that even though Crooks' obsessively reads Law books and knows his Human Rights, his status and position in society shows that Laws were often overturned in favour of individual authority groups (employers, like The Boss) regardless of the Law, meaning his discrimination could continue. There is a nice concluding paragraph here as well, noting how Crooks, after finally letting white men into his tiny room and believing for a brief moment he could receive his dream, is left at the end of the Chapter again rubbing liniment on his back, showing that even after the glimmer of hope Lennie's dream presented him, he is still "a busted-back nigger".

Response to question

This question proposes to the candidates a task of analysis of the importance of Crooks in John Steinbeck's novel 'Of Mice And Men'. Characters in novels are quite often stereotyped and quite often representative of all people sharing the qualities of that individual character e.g. Crooks is representative of all black people in America at the time. The candidates has done well to answer this question with a demonstration of sound understanding of how Steinbeck reveals the importance of Crooks not just as an element of the novel, but also as a catalyst for other themes resonant in the novel e.g. - dreams.

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