Why is crooks back crooked

Candy realizes he has never been in Crooks' room, and George 's reaction to Crooks being involved in their dream is enough to cause Crooks to withdraw his request to be part of the dream. Racial discrimination is part of the microcosm Steinbeck describes in his story. It reaches its height in the novel when Curley's wife puts Crooks "in his place" by telling him that a word from her will have him lynched. Interestingly, only Lennie , the flawed human, does not see the color of Crooks' skin.

Crooks also has pride. He is not the descendent of slaves, he tells Lennie, but of landowners. In several places in the story, Steinbeck shows Crook's dignity and pride when he draws himself up and will not "accept charity" from anyone.

Crooks also displays this "terrible dignity" when Curley's wife begins to tear away at his hope for the dream farm. Crooks is not without his faults, however. He scares Lennie and makes up the story of George leaving him. This outsider status causes him to lament his loneliness , but he also delights in seeing the loneliness of others, perhaps because misery loves company.

When Crooks begins to pick on Lennie, suggesting George won't come home, we discover the slight mean streak that undoubtedly develops after being alone for so long. Lennie unwittingly soothes Crooks into feeling at ease, and Candy even gets the man excited about the dream farm , to the point where Crooks could fancy himself worthy and equal enough to be in on the plan with the guys. Crooks's little dream of the farm is shattered by Curley's wife's nasty comments, slotting the black man right back into his "place" as inferior to a white woman.

Jolted into that era's reality by Curley's wife harsh treatment, Crooks refuses to say the woman is wrong. Instead, he accepts the fact that he lives with ever-present racial discrimination.

He dismisses the other men, saying he had "forgotten himself" because they'd treated him so well. It seems Crooks defines his own notion of himself not based on what he believes he's worth, but on knowing that no matter how he feels, others around him will always value him as less. Charles slowly and deliberately drags a chair across the room. In this way, an instant dislike for Charles is achieved without him saying a word. He details the story of his last murder to Karl, at this early stage of the movie it is unclear whether Karl is approving of this one way conversation.

Open Document. Essay Sample Check Writing Quality. The chapter begins and ends with this recluse character applying liniment, a medicinal fluid rubbed into the skin to soothe pain or relieve stiffness, to his "crooked" back. One of the first impressions given to readers is of his physical pain- which presumable parallels his emotional, or spiritual pain. More to the point, however, the first five words of the chapter, "Crooks, the negro stable buck.. For in contrast to the lonliness of Candy or of Curly's wife, Crooks is devided from the world by his race.

So, on one level, with the character of Crooks, Steinbeck captures social injustice of the times, and, on another level, offers yet another character to symbolize the theme of lonliness. Crook's victimization both as a lonely cripple and a black man in a bigoted world is presented as an emotional journey in which Crooks goes first from hopeless recluse, then to hoping to share in the dream of Lennie and George, and finally a return to his hopelessness.

Steinbeck offers several hints that color the sort of hopeless lonliness of Crook's life. For a black stable hand during the Great Depression life was extremely lonely - a life of quiet desperation. To begin with, Steinbeck describes Crooks as "a proud, aloof man. He kept his distance and demanded that other people keep theirs Perhaps this desire to keep apart is merely a psychological trick he has played on himself, as if he wanted to be left always alone? In any case, the story continues with Steinbeck introducing Lennie into Crook's world: "Noiseles Dreaming was a game, and when the game ends he begins his routine game of pretending he prefers his lonliness.

Of coarse, his pretending is the lie. Steinbeck completes this circular transformation of Crooks by making the last paragraph a parallel of the opening one in which Crooks sits, alone of course, on his bunk rubbing his crippled spine, the ever present reminder to him of his painful existence. In conclusion, Steinbeck has masterfully woven into his story this character analysis of, arguably, the most pained victim in the author's mind.

The proof of his importance to Steinbeck is the fact that the chapter is devoted to Crooks himself. It perhaps reveals Steinbeck's own personal observation, and concern, with the most victimized of Americans, the black man. Works Cited Steinbeck, John.