Crooks In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Crooks, the one black man on the ranch. In other words, the outcast. Steinbeck gave him the name “Crooks” , for a reason, and that reason was symbolism. Other than Curley’s Wife, Crooks is the only other character whose name symbolises themselves. The symbolism in Crooks’ names is that it designates his crooked back. As a person, Steinbeck presents him as a very lonely person, this mainly being due to his facial colour. This loneliness is also represented by his room, the place adjoined to the stable. Crooks has evidently been separated from everyone else, so to console himself he “puts” the others away. He keeps to himself, supposedly by his own choice, but Steinbeck makes us see his inner feelings, he wants to be with the other men in the …show more content…
Throughout his time in the ranch, and his life, he has obviously endured a lot of pain, both physical and psychological. The main reason being his skin colour. Overtime all this abuse would have turned into jealousy, anger and a lust for revenge, which is why, when an innocent person like “Lennie” comes along, his hidden side, just leaps at the opportunity to hurt a white man. Although Crooks does not hurt Lennie physically, he does try to instil some fear into his mind, by insinuating that George will never come back. “S’pose George don’t come back no more” is what he says to Lennie. Although Lennie only partly understands it, Crooks still feels as he has superiority over him. He is torturing Lennie not only because this is the one chance where he can torture a white man, but because Lennie is the only person who he can torture. Crooks may have been at the peak of happiness during his go at Lennie. All his built up jealousy is unleashed upon Lennie, unfortunately this “once in a blue moon” pleasure of Crooks, was extremely short-lived. As soon as Lennie made sense of what Crooks was saying, he “towered” above Crooks. Steinbeck may have created a mean and ruthless side to Crooks, just to show us that as ordinary humans, we all have our own likings. Once someone does something we don’t like, and we have no way of expressing it, it builds up inside us and turns into jealousy. And whether we know it or not, we start directing it at someone vulnerable. All this may bring a sense of sympathy towards Crooks, because although he is shown to be mean and ruthless, it was only because of his loneliness. Take away his loneliness, and he becomes a normal human being, just like every other white worker on the