Authors over the years have written about black rights and the inhumane treatment of their race. People such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, and William Lloyd Garrison. A more recent depiction of black oppression is John Steinbeck. The Great Depression was a hard time for all American’s, but the black community had it tougher than most. These hardships are exposed in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck shows us these struggles through the character Crooks. Crooks is a disabled black man who has to live in solitude away from the other workers because of the color of his skin.
Even two to three generations removed from slavery, racism, and oppression towards blacks was still deeply embedded in American society. “Approximately 40 percent of all …show more content…
He sleeps in the barn on a bed of hay and straw. “You got no right to come in my room. This here’s my room. Nobody got any right in here but me” (Steinbeck 68; ch.4). Lennie wants to come talk to Crooks because everyone went into town. When Lennie enters the doorway, he sees Crooks applying liniment to his mangled back. Seeing as Crooks lives in solitude when he sees Lennie he tells him to leave, but he secretly wants the company. He lets Lennie stay and they talk for a while.
Crooks has learned to live with the solitude and confinement of his separate room. "You go on get outta my room. I ain’t wanted in the bunk house, and you ain’t wanted in my room."Why ain’t you wanted?" Lennie asked."’Cause I’m black” (68; ch.4). Lennie doesn’t understand the concept of racism and hatred. When Crooks tells him he isn’t wanted in the bunkhouse, Lennie doesn’t realize or know that blacks were kept separate from whites. When Steinbeck writes this, the reader realizes the discrimination and the harsh reality that blacks face during the Great Depression.
Crooks’ feelings of loneliness and detachment from being separated are a representation of the black community during the depression. As sad as that may be, it was how society functioned in the
Even two to three generations removed from slavery, racism, and oppression towards blacks was still deeply embedded in American society. “Approximately 40 percent of all …show more content…
He sleeps in the barn on a bed of hay and straw. “You got no right to come in my room. This here’s my room. Nobody got any right in here but me” (Steinbeck 68; ch.4). Lennie wants to come talk to Crooks because everyone went into town. When Lennie enters the doorway, he sees Crooks applying liniment to his mangled back. Seeing as Crooks lives in solitude when he sees Lennie he tells him to leave, but he secretly wants the company. He lets Lennie stay and they talk for a while.
Crooks has learned to live with the solitude and confinement of his separate room. "You go on get outta my room. I ain’t wanted in the bunk house, and you ain’t wanted in my room."Why ain’t you wanted?" Lennie asked."’Cause I’m black” (68; ch.4). Lennie doesn’t understand the concept of racism and hatred. When Crooks tells him he isn’t wanted in the bunkhouse, Lennie doesn’t realize or know that blacks were kept separate from whites. When Steinbeck writes this, the reader realizes the discrimination and the harsh reality that blacks face during the Great Depression.
Crooks’ feelings of loneliness and detachment from being separated are a representation of the black community during the depression. As sad as that may be, it was how society functioned in the