Prejudice

Question 1

Lennie’s disability limiting

Answer 1

• ‘If he finds out what a crazy bastard you are, we won’t get no job,‘
• ‘crazy bastard’ gives an insight to some of the derogatory terms used against neurodivergent people during the Great Depression. It reflects as well on the fragility of George and Lennie’s lives and how if the boss finds out about Lennie’s disability, they’ll lose their job
• Lennie represents the effects of peoples ignorant attitudes to those who were mentally challenged, and how prejudice towards people like Lennie would limit them, and so they would have to hide their disabilities — just as George is advising him to
• Most Neurodivergent people during the Great Depression were sent to mental asylums, locked away from family that didn’t have enough money or time to care for them
• Therefore Steinbeck has used this to invoke compassion in the reader, showing further struggle for George and Lennie who already suffer from the classicism for being itinerant workers.

Question 2

Racism

Answer 2

• racism towards Crooks
• Curley’s wife: ‘I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.”
• Crooks is at the bottom of the ranch hierarchy and Curley’s wife reminds him, Crooks is the only POC on the ranch and so racism like this isn’t uncommon
• ‘strung up on a tree’ is a reference to the lynchings, carried out by white supremacy groups such as the Klu Klux Klun who were very active in South America during the Great Depression
• It is clear that Steinbeck has used Crooks’ interaction with Curley’s wife as a microcosm of the fear POC lived in during the Great Depression and how white supremacists (represented by Curley’s wife) wouldn’t hesitate to carry out these acts due to the biased courts of America which gave them little or no repercussions when they committed these awful crimes.
• A reader would therefore feel an increased sympathy for Crooks, knowing how helpless he is in this Situation

Question 3

Sexism

Answer 3

• she is first introduced through her reputation
  -‘Well, I think Curley married…a tart’
• Casual sexism, never being addressed by her name, as if she is an object.
• ‘Tart’ is a derogatory noun. Candy and others on ranch feel like they can comment on her like an object.
• reflects how normalised sexism was in 1930s and how it. Had no repercussions
• A modern reader might be more nuanced in their approach to meeting her for the first time, feel sympathy for her.