Literature Unit 1- Exploring Modern Texts – Mr Dale Exemplar
Section B (Of Mice and Men)
21a) How do the details in the passage add to your understanding of
Crooks?
In this passage, Steinbeck provides the first and only description of Crooks’
living quarters, separate from the rest of the men on the ranch, and there are
a number of details that help the reader to understand why Crooks seems so
isolated, defensive and bitter. Unlike the other men, Crooks lives alone in the
stables where he works, not even given a place separate from his work,
almost as if he is one of the horses, a mere animal (reflecting the ways that
Lennie is also often described). Ironically, he lives among the very animals
that crippled him.
The place itself is cluttered with working equipment and harnesses, such as
“leather-working tools” and “a split collar with horsehair stuffing sticking out,”
so that he has no luxuries or a space to call his own, almost as if he has been
placed there as an after-thought. George complains about his bed in the
bunkhouse, but at least he has a proper bed of sorts, whereas Crooks is given
“a long box filled with straw,” which would be uncomfortable enough for an
able-bodied man, but must be intolerable for the crippled Crooks. Apart from
the cramped conditions with all sorts of hazards hanging from the ceiling, the
room itself is described as “a little room” with very little light coming through “a
square four-paned window” with nothing pleasant or any home comforts, save
the few possessions spread around the room, and even his medicines are “for
himself and for his horses,” as if his medical needs are no different from theirs
and he is denied proper medical treatment in a society that has no
compassion for the elderly, black or crippled.
The number of personal possessions is explained by the fact that he is “more
permanent than the other men,” because he is unable to travel around and
would probably not get work elsewhere even if he could travel, and that fact
that he “could leave his things about” shows how he doesn’t get visitors and
knows that no-one would come into his room to steal. Although Crooks has
more possessions than the other men, they all seem to be connected with
basic survival – his work, medical treatment or knowing his rights. His old
“mauled copy of the California civil code” has obviously been well-used for
Crooks to know his rights and avoid getting into trouble because of the Jim
Crow laws of an institutionally racist society. The “battered magazines and
“dirty books” are a reminder of his loneliness and isolation, and the well-worn
“tattered dictionary” and “gold-rimmed spectacles” indicate an educated and
literate man, unlike many of the workers in the bunkhouse, and his pride is
reflected in the way the room is “swept and fairly neat,” as if, even in this
squalor, Crooks is determined to maintain his dignity and self-respect. This
somehow makes his legally-enforced isolation even more of an injustice.
21b) How does Steinbeck use the character of Crooks in the novel as a
whole to convey important ideas about America in the 1930s?
It is noticeable that this extended section of the novel is the only time that the
reader is taken inside Crooks’ room or given much information about his life;
his appearances throughout the rest of the novel are fleeting and he has no
dialogue, almost as if Steinbeck places him on the edge of the story as
society places him out in the stables to fend for himself. Steinbeck uses
Crooks to show the extent of racism in America at that time, with several
characters referring to him as “the stable buck” as if he is just part of the
stable with no identity of his own, and with casual racist insults, even when
they are expressing admiration for the way he endures the boss’ temper or
Crooks’ skill at horseshoes.
It is in his harness room home that Crooks encounters Lennie and places
himself in danger when he tries to get Lennie to sympathise with his isolation
– the only people who come to visit him, other than Slim (who only comes for
professional reasons) are the simpleton Lennie, the old, crippled Candy and
the unhappy Curley’s wife, all “losers” marginalized by society. Despite
Crooks initial hostility to Lennie, he is obviously desperate for company and
invites him in, telling Lennie how he fears for his own sanity and that “books
ain’t no good” for company. As he tells Lennie, Crooks is so desperate for
“just talking, being with another guy” that he tolerates a visitor who has no
idea about what he is actually talking about and cannot offer any real
sympathy or company.
Steinbeck is very explicit about the fact that Crooks is separated from the
others solely because he is black (even the similarly crippled Candy gets to
share the bunkhouse with the men) and shows the social injustice with Crooks
innocent childhood memories of life on his father’s farm playing with white
boys before his father became bitter and withdrawn, a reminder of a happy
childhood crushed with adult experiences of brutal racism.
Perhaps it is this very memory, coupled with a desire to escape his isolation,
that draws Crooks in to sharing the dream of owning their own ranch, even
though Crooks has been rather defensive and scathing about how many other
men he has seen with the same dream coming to nothing. Steinbeck shows
the vulnerability of Crooks as a black man in a white society, and just how
fragile his dreams are, when Curley’s wife arrives and, despite having no real
status of her own, or power on the ranch, insults and silences Crooks in his
own home, countering his attempts at argument with a threat to have him
“strung up so quick it ain’t even funny,” reminding the reader of the everyday
dangers to black people from the KKK and other racist gangs. Even Crooks’
“single-barrelled shotgun” seems to offer no real protection in this society and
it is significant that his last mention the novel is when the posse take his gun
to help hunt down Lennie, another outsider persecuted to destruction.