Racism In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

During the 1930s in America, life for people with colour was difficult due to racism, segregation and isolation which was seen as normality back then. Black people did everything to stay out of troubled and avoid been lynched; especially by the Ku-klux-klan who still had a lot of power. Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck reflects to all these themes and other such as: The American Dream, discrimination, friendship, prejudice etc. It also reflects to the Great depression of the 1930s through Lennie and George who travelled from place to place to work (frontiersmen) and through Crooks, who reviews how Blacks were treated in the 1930s. For example, he worked as hard as or even harder than anyone in the ranch but still was unworthy because of his race and position in the society in the 1930s. The title Of Mice and men comes from Robert Burns’ poem “To a Mouse”, this is relevant to the novel as Steinbeck portrays his characters to be at the mercy of fate, almost as powerless as mice. The purpose of my essay is to show how Steinbeck portrays Crooks in the novel.
The name Crooks is due to his crooked back; yet he is regularly referred to as ‘nigger’ which reflects to racism during the 1930s.
The reader only gets a sense of how Crooks is treated in chapter 2 in a conversation between two characters, “Ya see the stable bucks a nigger” he is addressed to as nigger and not his name. Later the reader gets to know more about Crooks only in Chapter four. However he is only addressed by his name by Steinbeck in contrast to the other characters that also refer him to as nigger. Steinbeck does this to show the reader Crooks didn’t really have an identity in the ranch which also referred to the black race identity indirectly in the
1930s.
The description of his room shows he is as normal as the other workers, “This room was swept and fairly neat…” still the other workers didn’t see him equal to them. He wasn’t allowed to share or even enter their room; although this made him have more possession, some of it reflected to his personality; “a tattered dictionary and a mauled copy of the Carlifornia civil code,” which suggest educated himself. Some of his belongings highlighted his treatment and segregation from the society. He had a few dirty books (not as feel with dust) suggesting it were adult books because he wasn’t allowed in the cat house because to his skin colour. Steinbeck emphasises on the range of medicine bottles he had for himself and the horses to show crocks was equal to the other workers so that the reader sympathises with him.