Essay of Mice of men
Choose two characters from the list below and say why you think they are important in the novel and how Steinbeck presents them. (Curley’s wife and Crooks).
The two characters that are important in the novel of Mice of Men are Curley’s wife and Crooks.
Curley’s wife is a pivotal character. Her hasty marriage to Curley proves to be failed attempt to escape from her own spiral of loneliness. Further, his failure to satisfy her, either emotionally or physically, leads her to seek solace with the other men, even those at the bottom of the social hierarchy of the ranch. Because of the circumstances of her own isolation, Curley’s wife cannot escape from the sexual image that the other men have of her. She therefore cultivates this image as a means of being noticed, to talk to someone, and as a mean of defence.
Crooks is the only black man in the novel and it is through attitudes towards his character that we gain insights into the positions of blacks in America at the time. Crooks do not live with the other hands in the bunkhouse; instead, he is isolated in his own room in the barn. He is openly referred to as ‘nigger’ which exemplifies the casual racism directed towards him by the others they do not set out to insult him deliberately, but the use of the term ‘nigger’ signals to us that black men like crooks were constantly degraded both verbally and physically by whites. Crooks, too, experiences the emotional bleakness of the majority of the characters drawn by Steinbeck in this story, as shown in his jealously of George and Lennie’s friendship and his desire to join in the dream of the part-owning their own ranch.
