Crooks Flashcards
Crooks explains to Lennie “I can’t play cause I’m black” in Chapter 4
“a guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody”
Despite Crooks being very distant to the other ranch workers as a character, he confides in Lennie in Chapter 4 by revealing his true loneliness. The idiom “nuts” conveys how he also suffers mentally due to the separation from the rest of the ranch members. Crooks uses the third person, “a guy” whilst referring to him self as he tries to detach himself from the fact that “he ain’t got nobody”.
‘Crooks had reduced himself to nothing…”yes ma’am” and his voice was toneless’
Crooks says this line after Curley’s Wife’s threat to him which relates to lynching and this really shows how he’s highlighted as the most vulnerable character on the ranch since somebody like Curley’s wife, one of the weakest characters in the novella, is able to make him retreat which reveals to the reader how he is at the bottom of the social hierarchy on the ranch.
“I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick”
Crooks opens up about the powerful impact of loneliness on an individual which draws empathy from the reader. The Jim Crow laws were enforced in America between 1875 and 1965 which provided a legal basis for segregation and discrimination against African Americans; people did have equal rights but equal as in seperate and not the same rights.
“He got a crooked back where a horse kicked him in”
It is revealed to the reader that Crooks has his name from his back injury which perhaps may be a symbol of the crippling impact of the prejudice society he had lived in. He is also the literal example of the tough working conditions
“stable buck”, “Crooks”
Crooks is often mistreated throughout the novella as we never get to learn his real name considering he’s referred to in derogatory terms such as “stable buck”, “Crooks” or the n word which connotes the dehumanising treatment he receives on the ranch. Despite the novella being set after 50 years slavery had ended, Steinbeck uses the character of Crooks to portray the fact that the racist attitudes in America hadn’t changed but instead, they were accepted and encouraged
“Crooks’ bunk was filled with straw”
The bed draws parallels with a horse’s bed of straw which further depicts the dehumanising conditions Crooks had to live in
Candy says the boss “gave the stable buck hell” and Candy says “The stable buck’s a n**r” and “nice fella too”
The reader first hears about Crooks when learning how the Boss targets him as a scapegoat. Candy explains the mistreatment and his words by revealing Crooks is African American as if that is an acceptable reason to mistreat a human being. He swiftly goes from calling him the n word to a “nice fella” which indicates the normalized racist conditions present on the ranch
“Come on in and set a while”
The short moment between Lennie and Crooks as Lennie entered his room connotes that Crooks neglects the feeling of knowing someone is in his room however, he ends up opening up to Lennie and realizes how much he actually needed a friend, someone to talk to. Crooks understood from then the importance of friendship
