Of Mice and Men – Crooks exam question
The details in the passage add to my understanding of Crooks by the uses of language used in the given text.
Crook’s has a ‘narrow plank door’ leading to the barn signifies his close relationship to the animals, horses in particular that currently reside in the barn. Crook’s job on the ranch as a stable buck gives him the authority to take care of the animals and this job helps make Crooks less lonely as he is discriminated among the other ranch workers because of his skin colour and ethnic. This would also represent Crook’s status in 1930’s America during the Great Depression. The discriminating white men would disregard and ignore Crooks and thing of him less than human therefore lowering his rank to one of the animals on the ranch not one of the stable workers.
The stable buck’s bed is a ‘long box filled with straw’, which again shows how harshly Crooks was treated during the Great Depression and how he had been stripped of any luxuries.
Crooks had given up on any guests visiting him as his ‘blankets were flung’ which shows the reader how he had no reason to tidy his room as in the 1930’s America people had great prejudices due to the poverty and lack of sympathy during the hard times the country was going through due to the massive crash in the stock market. These prejudices prevented the people in talking and interacting with people like Crooks therefore driving them to loneliness after being treated as outcasts.
Crooks room has a main focus around the horses he tends to on a daily basis. His room is full of job related items such as a ‘broken harness’ and ‘strips of new leather’. Steinbeck is suggesting that Crooks has a tendency to care more for the animals on the ranch than for himself. The irony for that part is, that nobody cares for Crooks because of his dark skin and lack of blood family and him living in a time where other people would regard their prejudices and narrow minds on a higher scale...