LAZZAROTTI Jasmine extract section 4

Throughout history, people of color had to fight to earn rights, to be seen as equal as the rest
of the population. The discrimination they underwent happened everywhere, including in their
workplace. Steinbeck denounces these immoral working conditions through the character of Crooks
in his novella Of Mice and Men which takes place in California during the Great Depression era.
Crooks isn’t the main character but he helps us understand the coldness of the novella’s universe, in
which we are following George Milton and Lennie Small, two ranch-workers going from farm to
farm in order to be able to buy their own land, to fulfill their material American Dream. In this
excerpt, Candy, an old man who decided to partake in George and Lennie’s project, and Lennie, the
strong and mentally-challenged protagonist, are in Crooks’ room, which is apart from the others’
because of his skin tone, with him. They are having a conversation that Curley’s wife overhears and
it makes her step into the room to get involved in their discussion. This extract undermines the
confidence that the characters are getting because of their status, hopes and relationships, while also
showing how lonely they are in their daily life.

Half of the ranch being in town, Curley’s wife is therefore the highest character on the
hierarchy in this scene. She takes advantage of her current status by threatening Crooks when he
asks her to leave his room, saying “You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?”. She
probably has no intention of saying anything to anyone but having power over others is not
something she is used to and her affirming her authority makes her feel valued. For the first time in
the novella, Curley’s wife holds her ground and is depicted as aggressive and violent, saying things
such as “I could get you strung upon a tree so easy it ain’t even funny". It shows us that she is also
contributing to the cruel atmosphere of the story, she is attacking the weaker and seems to enjoy
tormenting him. This enjoyment is accentuated when “she stood over him as though waiting for him
to move so that she could whip at him again” (l.54-55). It truly shows the readers that even the
characters we are not expecting to have such violence and hate inside of them have it, thus, it
emphasizes this environment shown throughout the whole novella that is very still yet seems to be
restless and to attack at any moment, without truly having a lasting impact.
Cruelty being a key component of the atmosphere, the confidence Crooks had built during
his previous conversation where he was talked to as an equal, not disregarded because he is black,
vanishes once he gets reminded of his condition. Crooks was standing up for himself and showed
confidence when doing so “you jus’ get out, an’ get out quick”(l.41). Him talking that way means he
trusted Candy and Lennie enough to be sure they were beside him and not on Curley’s wife’s side.
We can assume that he finally felt like he belonged somewhere, with people who were also
overlooked in the ranch, but as mentioned earlier, the atmosphere of the novella is still and
whatever happens doesn’t truly matter because it always comes back to the initial point. Eventually,
Crooks realizes that his condition hasn’t changed and he is not fitting in, this realization hits him
when Curley’s wife refers to him as a “Nigger”. We then witness him losing all hopes and
confidence with the use of the lexical field of despair “hopelessly”, “grow smaller”, “toneless”, he
is only a shell of what he was some lines before, he has renounced to be “either liked or
disliked”(l.53). Once again, the world is not being cautious with the treatment he gets, he cannot
escape his fate, he is trapped inside a body that will get him to be discriminated and hated for no
reason for his whole life. This extremely harsh reality also hits Candy who is “fascinated” by what
is happening and it helps him understand how mean and rude it was for him to ignore Crooks on the
sole basis of his skin since he now got to see what Crooks’ personality was like. To redeem himself,
Candy stands up for Crooks, affirming he”’d tell about [Curley’s wife] framin’ Crooks”, it could be
interpreted like a sign of friendship but knowing their relationship is very young, him defending
Crooks is more likely to be a way to unleash the guilt he started feeling when he realized what
Crooks’ daily life was like.
 While some seem to show solidarity in order to be seen as respectable, Curley’s wife acts
indifferent about her husband situation. It makes her “laugh”, we would expect her to be upset
because her husband got his hand crushed but she doesn’t seem to care. Actually, with her reaction
we are hinted that she doesn’t like Curley, and it seems weird to us readers because she is nameless,
she is only associated to her partner’s name, as if her whole world revolves around him, that’s kind
of the truth because she is forced to stay inside her home everyday, without ever talking to
somebody else. Moreover, she appears to be amused of Lennie’s reaction when he says “he got his
han’ caught in a machine”(l.30-31) because he doesn’t want to get in trouble and he is following
carefully George’s instructions even though Curley’s wife didn’t say anything about what had
happened to her husband. It almost seems silly how Lennie is only remembering what George has
told him to say, it truly lay the emphasis on the trust he has in George, said trust and friendship is
further revealed when George’s name is mentioned and Lennie stops being stressed and comes back
to what is normal for him: talking about when he is going to “tend the rabbits”(l.36).
Since their dream seems to be getting closer and closer, Lennie is full of hopes as usual but
Candy is also sharing this excitement that makes him act like it is already a reality. He claims he is
not “scared of getting canned”(l.14-15) because for him, the thing he is looking forward to is
already existing, waiting for him and his new friends to arrive. He is very happy to be a part of the
project but not only because he yearns for independence but also because it would mean he
wouldn’t be lonely anymore, he would have “got fren’s”. This idea of friendship is often written in
the novella, because of George and Lennie who are not like other ranch-men, they travel together
and that is a thing that others wish to have, so does Candy, therefore, it explains his excitement.
Nonetheless, a lot of workers go from ranch to ranch always claiming they will soon own their own
land and Curley’s wife have “seen too many you guys” that talk and talk but never get anything
done. It seems foolish to her to believe in this sort of dreams, for her, Candy is naive and dumb
which is quite ironic because Candy insults her by saying she has a “chicken head” (l.9) meaning
she, herself, doesn’t comprehend what is shown in front of her. They seem to have fallen in the
same category, thus making her part of the “bindle stiffs”.
Indeed, both of them as well as Lennie and Crooks are all outcasts in the ranch. Curley’s
wife being the only woman and being married, she cannot engage in discussions freely because she
is scared of the consequences of her husband’s reaction and the other men dodge her for the same
reason. Candy has stopped being seen like an actual worker since he got old and lost his hand.
Lennie is disabled which makes him unable to fit in because his vision of the world is different from
others’. Crooks is a black man and segregation is still very present in the 1930’s. Therefore, it is
legitimate that Candy decides to tell Curley’s wife that if she tries to make them fall, “nobody will
listen to us.”, not only her but them too, they are not seen as important, none of them are, they come
and they go; from ranch to ranch or from her house to the bunk house. The world will continue to
spin without them, other workers will come, they are disposable, once again, the environment stays
still while people come and go, without ever having an impact. Even in this excerpt, we have a loop
because the first line answers the last, giving us the reaction Curley’s wife had when she understood
that she wasn’t as valuable as she though she was: “she was breathless with indignation”.

To sum up, this extract showed how the weak kept on hurting the weaker, how cruel the
characters’ lives are, how respect is earn and not given so are dreams and hopes that should be
analyzed before believed in. And it mainly depicted the never lasting movement of people in the
ranch, coming and leaving before being forgotten, thus the idea of fitting in such a place is
unbelievable, the only things that are truly part of the setting are still, like a picture, something that
cannot be changed, only looked at for a brief moment.