Instead of people helping their parents and grandparents, they would leave them to fend for themselves. Due to most people fending for themselves, the elderly were forced to do the same. Unfortunately, due to their age and fragility, they were unable to find jobs, and those with jobs were either replaced by younger people or they were doing menial tasks. They were represented by Candy in Steinbeck’s novella. He was an old swamper who was missing his right hand from an old accident.
African-Americans were another group which was doing terribly in the America during the Great Depression. According to Document 2, 50% of blacks were unemployed in 1930. The African-Americans suffered more than the whites, since they had their jobs taken from them. They were represented by Crooks in Of Mice and Men. Crooks was an African American who was quite intelligent but was always hunched over due to an old injury. This crippled him and represented how the African-American community was crippled in the United States at the time. Despite him being intelligent, he is still treated as inferior due to his