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Saba Obaid
Ms. Yahya
English 10B
31 January, 2015
“The Outcasts of Mice and Men”
In the novel “Of Mice and Men”, a variety of characters are present, although, not all fit
in. Two of the strongest examples are Crooks, and Curley’s wife. Throughout the novel, they are
portrayed as social outcasts in whatever they did. Another good example is Lennie, mainly
because of his mental condition. All three are treated in a cruel manner at one point or another in
the novel.
Crooks is an older black man with a crooked back, who lives by himself in the barn. He
was asked to not bother the whites, and to stay out of their way, and so therefore he requests that
no one bothers him. Being the only African American on the ranch, the reader begins to question
racism and prejudice. Were the others racist toward Crooks? Not necessarily, they just didn’t
allow him to hang out in the bunkhouse with them. At one point in the novel, Crooks talks of
how lonely he gets, and how a man goes insane without anyone to talk with. He says to Lennie:
"S'pose you didn't have nobody. S'pose you couldn't go into the bunkhouse and play rummy
'cause you was black. How'd you like that? S'pose you had to sit out here an' read books. Sure
you could play horseshoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain't no good. A
guy needs somebody-to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no
difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets
sick" (pg.'s 72-73). Even if nobody treated him like an outcast, or in other words called him a
nigger and pushed him around, he had to feel like one.
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The other men on the ranch also treat Curley’s wife as an outcast. Who is never given a
name, poorly. She is always looking for attention and flirting with them, and this turns them off
immensely. The fact that she is the only woman in the novel, accept for the one from Weed,
caused her to be an outcast. Curley doesn’t let her talk with any other men accept himself, and
rarely shows her any affection. At one point in the novel, Curley’s wife gets upset with the fact
that she isn’t allowed to socialize with the other men, and she doesn’t understand them, and so
she says this : "If I catch any one man, and he's alone, I get along fine with him. But just let two
of the guys get together an' you won't talk. Jus' nothing but
mad. You're all scared of each other, that's what. Ever' one of you's scared the rest is goin' to get
something on you" (Pg. 77). She might have got more attention if she didn't flaunt herself so
much. She was definitely one of the outcasts.
Finally, we come to the enormous, clumsy, and mentally slow Lennie. He isn’t treated as
an outcast by the others as much as Crooks and Curley’s wife are, but instead, his mental
disorder basically separates him from the others. He is always in his own world minding his own
business. The fact that he is constantly set apart from the others with no one to supervise him
caused him to get into trouble more often. He is alone in the barn with curley’s wife when he
accidently breaks her neck. If someone else had been there, such a horrible incident might have
been prevented. Lennie is also a loner.
In conclusion, the fact that these characters were treated so poorly helped to add an
interesting twist to the story, and it added to the plot, ultimately creating a successful novel. John
Steinbeck uses his characters by portraying them as being social outcasts. Crooks, Curley's wife,
and Lennie each receive their fair share of dislike in the book. This is why they are the out casts
of the novel.
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