Of Mice and Men
How are Crooks and Curley’s Wife presented as weakened/marginalised characters in the novella ‘Of Mice and Men’?
Both Curley’s Wife and Crooks suffer from loneliness as a result of their marginalised life in the novella. Curley’s Wife - because of her gender and partly because of her tart-like nature, and Crooks - because of his race and his skin colour. Most (almost all) of the characters are victims of ostracism, although some cases are more noticeable than others.
Steinbeck describes Crooks’ outcasted life very early in the book through Candy. Candy says how Crooks gets abuse from the boss for things that are unreasonable and not his fault. ‘An’ he give the stable buck hell too.’’Ya see the stable bucks a nigger.’ These comments suggest Crooks is a victim because he is the only character said to have been abused by the boss of the ranch, Curley’s Father. It also shows how Crooks is used as a sort of rag doll that the boss uses to take out all his frustration on.
Candy then describes Crooks using a racial slur. This supports Crooks’ isolation further as Candy’s descriptive introduction of Crooks is through his colour and not his personality or any of his other features. The use of the racist term reflects also how everyone else sees and judges Crooks and that this type of language was not even frowned upon in the society of these times. This is typical behaviour though during the 1930’s – which was during the Great Depression. ‘Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego – nothing to arouse either like or dislike.’ The futility of crooks stand shows how little power a black person has in the world of this novel. But this is classic behaviour of a black person in this time period, as it was the only way for people of this race to survive, to make it seem as if they didn’t even exist. This is because once attention was brought to them, and someone (most probably a white person) didn’t like what they were saying/doing, the white
Both Curley’s Wife and Crooks suffer from loneliness as a result of their marginalised life in the novella. Curley’s Wife - because of her gender and partly because of her tart-like nature, and Crooks - because of his race and his skin colour. Most (almost all) of the characters are victims of ostracism, although some cases are more noticeable than others.
Steinbeck describes Crooks’ outcasted life very early in the book through Candy. Candy says how Crooks gets abuse from the boss for things that are unreasonable and not his fault. ‘An’ he give the stable buck hell too.’’Ya see the stable bucks a nigger.’ These comments suggest Crooks is a victim because he is the only character said to have been abused by the boss of the ranch, Curley’s Father. It also shows how Crooks is used as a sort of rag doll that the boss uses to take out all his frustration on.
Candy then describes Crooks using a racial slur. This supports Crooks’ isolation further as Candy’s descriptive introduction of Crooks is through his colour and not his personality or any of his other features. The use of the racist term reflects also how everyone else sees and judges Crooks and that this type of language was not even frowned upon in the society of these times. This is typical behaviour though during the 1930’s – which was during the Great Depression. ‘Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego – nothing to arouse either like or dislike.’ The futility of crooks stand shows how little power a black person has in the world of this novel. But this is classic behaviour of a black person in this time period, as it was the only way for people of this race to survive, to make it seem as if they didn’t even exist. This is because once attention was brought to them, and someone (most probably a white person) didn’t like what they were saying/doing, the white