The novel of mice and men essay

In the novel Of Mice and Men, the theme of racism is expressed throughout by the character Crooks. The way they treat Crooks in the book shows the racism of the characters and how the different races act with one another. Every character in the novel is somewhat racist to Crooks, because nobody talks or spends any time With him because he is black, which makes Crooks feel sad and lonely since he has nobody to talk to. Furthermore, to make sure nobody spends any time with Crooks, the boss of the farm put him in his own hack, isolated from everybody, alone. This is the most obvious example of racism in the book, because Crooks is only separated due to his skin color, and not because he has done anything wrong. By being segregated, people look at him differently and treat him differently, and not in a nice way.

Being kept away from everybody makes Crooks unhappy and lonely because he has nobody to spend time with and share his opinion with. This makes him bitter towards all of the white people because he feels they are the reason why he s lonely, and he is upset at the way they have treated him. Crooks is very defensive around white people, and we can see this when Leonie visits Crooks in his shack. When all of the men left to go to the doctor to fix Curler’s hand Leonie wanted to stay with someone, so he decided to go to Crooks’ shack because there was a light on.

“(page 1 00) I anti doing nothing…. And I just seen your light” Crooks doesn’t want to spend time with Leonie as he is not allowed into the bunk house so Leonie isn’t allowed in his shack “ If you guys don’t let me in your house to play cards, why should I let you in mine.

Because of the way white people have treated Crooks, he would rather be alone and sad than have friend that is white who treat him badly. Steinbeck shows the reader how sass’s America was by giving Crooks (the only black person on the ranch) the worst job in the ranch, which is the stable boy. Crooks is often alone in the stable with nobody to talk to. In a typical day on the farm, Crooks will not talk to anybody he has LOL himself to talk to. Crooks doesn’t even have the same freedom as anyone else in the ranch because he is forced to live in his own shack, and if he dares to go outside his little shack he is has to go back inside or he risks getting severely punished. Unfortunately, Crooks lives in the era of human history known as the Great Depression. This time period was about forty years before the civil rights movement occurred in North America, so Crooks was at a severe disadvantage of getting a job because he was black.