Section 4
In the extract given Crooks and Candy talk to Curley’s wife. In the extract we see Curley’s wife approach crooks and Candy and we see the relationship between them and how it explores how they have no respect for Curley’s wife. In the extract crooks approaches and insults Curley’s wife, which is quite significant as he is a black man and in the 1930’s Many black people were not respected and treated badly so the fact he has the courage to stand up to Curley’s wife suggests that he loathes her and does not care whether he gets in troubles as he disrespects her and does not care about her, this suggests that the relationship between crooks and Curleys wife is that Crooks is not showing any respect to Curleys wife even though he is black and she is white which states that he doesn’t care about hierarchy if someone is disloyal to their husband.
Candy also has a similar relationship with Curley’s wife as he also gets angry when she enters crooks’ room he says “if you were to do that we’d tell” this suggests that even though he does not get angry and even though he is a fragile old man he still believes that he can tell off Curley’s wife however he then backs down as he realises that a black man and an old fragile man cannot do anything against her so they both back down and we see the true nature of Curley’s wife as she gets angry.
When Candy and Crooks start to retaliate against Curleys wife she becomes angry and authorative as she says to crooks “Listen nigger; you know what I can do to you if you open your trap” the fact Steinbeck uses words like nigger suggests she does not respect him at all and believes is not worth anything and she then refers to his mouth being a “trap” which suggests that she thinks that he is not supposed to be respected and his mouth is like a trap as it will get her trapped if he says anything but it can also be seen as a insult as it is so disgusting it