Study Alert: remember, the film cuts almost the whole chapter - check the bit with Curley's Wife before you look at the extract questions
Optional:
Chapter Four - the loneliness of Crooks and the reality of The Dream.
* character/plot: where Lennie's dependency on George is clear; where Crooks shows the isolation of racist 1930s America; where Crooks sees right through the Farm Dream but would want to be part of it
* themes/ideas: how Steinbeck shows how 'All men are created equal' and the 'pursuit of happiness' are lies, showing how the American Dream is a lie and hope for a better life are just a way of making life less painful.
[Crooks] had books, too; a tattered dictionary and a mauled copy of the California civil code for 1905. There were battered magazines and a few dirty books on a special shelf over his bunk. A pair of large gold-rimmed spectacles hung from a nail on the wall above his bed. This room was swept and fairly neat, for Crooks was a proud, aloof man. He kept his distance and demanded that other people keep theirs. His body was bent over to the left by his crooked spine, and his eyes lay deep in his head, and because of their depth seemed to glitter with intensity. Noiselessly Lennie appeared in the open doorway and stood there looking in, his big shoulders nearly filling the opening. For a moment Crooks did not see him, but on raising his eyes he stiffened and a scowl came on his face. Lennie smiled helplessly in an attempt to make friends. Crooks said sharply, “You got no right to come in my room. This here’s my room. Nobody got any right in here but me.” Lennie gulped and his smile grew more fawning. “I ain’t doing nothing,” he said. “Just come to look at my puppy. And I seen your light,” he explained. “Well, I got a right to have a light. You go on get outa 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. They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink. Well, I tell you, you all of you stink to me.” 3. How does Steinbeck make Crooks such a desperately lonely character? Beyond his backstory, how does his use of such a one-sided conversation emphasise his loneliness? How does this reinforce how special Lennie and George's friendship is? 4. "A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody" is more parallel phrasing. Look for similarities in language, phrasing and character between Crooks and Curley's Wife. How does Steinbeck depict them as the ultimate outsiders in American society? How does he create sympathy in characters who can seem very unsympathetic? 5. Compare this parallel language with the language of the Rabbit at the end of the book - what similar phrases and speech patterns do you notice? Crooks put his dark chin into his pink palm. “You travel aroun’ with George, don’t ya?” “Sure. Me an’ him goes ever’ place together.” Crooks continued. “Sometimes he talks, and you don’t know what the hell he’s talkin’ about. Ain’t that so?” He leaned forward, boring Lennie with his deep eyes. “Ain’t that so?” “Yeah . . . . sometimes.” “Jus’ talks on, an’ you don’t know what the hell it’s all about?” “Yeah . . . . sometimes. But . . . . not always.” Crooks leaned forward over the edge of the bunk. “I ain’t a southern Negro,” he said. “I was born right here in California. My old man had a chicken ranch, ‘bout ten acres. The white kids come to play at our place, an’ sometimes I went to play with them, and some of them was pretty nice. My ol’ man didn’t like that. I never knew till long later why he didn’t like that. But I know now.” He hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice was softer. “There wasn’t another colored family for miles around. And now there ain’t a colored man on this ranch an’ there’s jus’ one family in Soledad.” He laughed. “If I say something, why it’s just a nigger sayin’ it.” Lennie asked, “How long you think it’ll be before them pups will be old enough to pet?” Crooks laughed again. “A guy can talk to you an’ be sure you won’t go blabbin’. Couple of weeks an’ them pups’ll be all right. George knows what he’s about. Jus’ talks, an’ you don’t understand nothing.” He leaned forward excitedly. “This is just a nigger talkin’, an’ a busted-back nigger. So it don’t mean nothing, see? You couldn’t remember it anyways. I seen it over an’ over —a guy talkin' to another guy and it don’t make no difference if he don’t hear or understand. The thing is, they’re talkin’, or they’re settin’ still not talkin’. It don’t make no difference, no difference.” His excitement had increased until he pounded his knee with this hand. “George can tell you screwy things, and it don’t matter. It’s just the talking. It’s just bein’ with another guy. That’s all.” He paused. [cut] Crooks said gently, “Maybe you can see now. You got George. You know he’s goin’ to come back. S’pose you didn’t have nobody. S’pose you couldn’t go into the bunk house and play rummy ‘cause you was black. How’d you like that? S’pose you had to sit out here an’ read books. Sure you could play horseshoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain’t no good. A guy needs somebody—to be near him.” He whined, “A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you. I tell ya,” he cried, “I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.” “George gonna come back,” Lennie reassured himself in a frightened voice. “Maybe George come back already. Maybe I better go see.” Crooks said, “I didn’t mean to scare you. He’ll come back. I was talkin’ about myself. A guy sets alone out here at night, maybe readin’ books or thinkin’ or stuff like that. Sometimes he gets thinkin’, an’ he got nothing to tell him what’s so an’ what ain’t so. Maybe if he sees somethin’, he don’t know whether it’s right or not. He can’t turn to some other guy and ast him if he sees it too. He can’t tell. He got nothing to measure by. I seen things out here. I wasn’t drunk. I don’t know if I was asleep. If some guy was with me, he could tell me I was asleep, an’ then it would be all right. But I jus’ don’t know.” 5. More parallel language! Compare Crooks and the hallucination rabbit at the end of the book. Why does Steinbeck give the rabbit Crooks' voice? 6. How does Crooks' astute observation that without George, Lennie would be locked up in a mental institution and restrained ("booby hatch" with a "collar") reflect what Slim says to George when he asks about The Law getting Lennie instead of Curley? What is Steinbeck saying about how the vulnerable are treated in America? “I said s’pose George went into town tonight and you never heard of him no more.” Crooks pressed forward some kind of private victory. “Just s’pose that,” he repeated. “He won’t do it,” Lennie cried. “George wouldn’t do nothing like that. I been with George a long a time. He’ll come back tonight—” But the doubt was too much for him. “Don’t you think he will?” Crooks’ face lighted with pleasure in his torture. “Nobody can’t tell what a guy’ll do,” he observed calmly. “Le’s say he wants to come back and can’t. S’pose he gets killed or hurt so he can’t come back.” Lennie struggled to understand. “George won’t do nothing like that,” he repeated. “George is careful. He won’t get hurt. He ain’t never been hurt, ‘cause he’s careful.” “Well, s’pose, jus’ s’pose he don’t come back. What’ll you do then?” Lennie’s face wrinkled with apprehension. “I don’ know. Say, what you doin’ anyways?” he cried. “This ain’t true. George ain’t got hurt.” Crooks bored in on him. “Want me ta tell ya what’ll happen? They’ll take ya to the booby hatch. They’ll tie ya up with a collar, like a dog.” 7. Steinbeck uses Crooks to show the futility of the Farm Dream (and hope, the American Dream etc too). Select a few key quotes that shows this 8. In the same passage, despite knowing that it realistically can't happen, that it is all an illusion, Crooks asks if he can come, with no payment but his keep (food and a place to stay). What does this tell you about the importance of hope and friendship in the world? The stable buck went on dreamily, “I remember when I was a little kid on my old man’s chicken ranch. Had two brothers. They was always near me, always there. Used to sleep right in the same room, right in the same bed—all three. Had a strawberry patch. Had an alfalfa patch. Used to turn the chickens out in the alfalfa on a sunny morning. My brothers’d set on a fence rail an’ watch ‘em —white chickens they was.” Gradually Lennie’s interest came around to what was being said. “George says we’re gonna have alfalfa for the rabbits.” “What rabbits?” “We’re gonna have rabbits an’ a berry patch.” “You’re nuts.” “We are too. You ast George.” “You’re nuts.” Crooks was scornful. “I seen hunderds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads. Hunderds of them. They come, an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head.” [cut] “You guys is just kiddin’ yourself. You’ll talk about it a hell of a lot, but you won’t get no land. You’ll be a swamper here till they take you out in a box. Hell, I seen too many guys. Lennie here’ll quit an’ be on the road in two, three weeks. Seems like ever’ guy got land in his head.” Candy rubbed his cheek angrily. “You God damn right we’re gonna do it. George says we are. We got the money right now.” “Yeah?” said Crooks. “An’ where’s George now? In town in a whorehouse. That’s where your money’s goin’. Jesus, I seen it happen too many times. I seen too many guys with land in their head. They never get none under their hand.” Candy cried, “Sure they all want it. Everybody wants a little bit of land, not much. Jus’ som’thin’ that was his. Som’thin’ he could live on and there couldn’t nobody throw him off of it. I never had none. I planted crops for damn near ever’body in this state, but they wasn’t my crops, and when I harvested ‘em, it wasn’t none of my harvest. But we gonna do it now, and don’t you make no mistake about that. George ain’t got the money in town. That money’s in the bank. Me an’ Lennie an’ George. We gonna have a room to ourself. We’re gonna have a dog an’ rabbits an’ chickens. We’re gonna have green corn an’ maybe a cow or a goat.” He stopped, overwhelmed with his picture. Crooks asked, “You say you got the money?” “Damn right. We got most of it. Just a little bit more to get. Have it all in one month. George got the land all picked out, too.” Crooks reached around and explored his spine with his hand. “I never seen a guy really do it,” he said. “I seen guys nearly crazy with loneliness for land, but ever’ time a whore house or a blackjack game took what it takes.” He hesitated. “ . . . . If you . . . . guys would want a hand to work for nothing—just his keep, why I’d come an’ lend a hand. I ain’t so crippled I can’t work like a son-of-a- bitch if I want to.” 9. Why is Crooks so subservient to Curley's Wife when he has no problem answering back to the white ranch men? 10. What is Steinbeck showing us about equality in America through this moment? 11. Steinbeck deliberately makes Curley's Wife really unsympathetic [and uses really misogynistic/sexist language from Candy too] so that the contrast with her later behaviour is more surprising. Why is it so unsettling for the reader to have these sudden changes in how we judge her and why does he do this? [Curley's Wife] turned on him in scorn. “Listen, Nigger,” she said. “You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?” Crooks stared hopelessly at her, and then he sat down on his bunk and drew into himself. She closed on him. “You know what I could do?” Crooks seemed to grow smaller, and he pressed himself against the wall. “Yes, ma’am.” “Well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung upon a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.” Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego— nothing to arouse either like or dislike. He said, “Yes, ma’am,” and his voice was toneless. For a moment she stood over him as though waiting for him to move so that she could whip at him again; but Crooks sat perfectly still, his eyes averted, everything that might be hurt drawn in. She turned at last to the other two. Old Candy was watching her, fascinated. “If you was to do that, we’d tell,” he said quietly. “We’d tell about you framin’ Crooks.” Tell an’ be damned,” she cried. “Nobody’d listen to you, an’ you know it. Nobody’d listen to you.” Candy subsided. “No . . . .” he agreed. “Nobody’d listen to us.” 12. How does Steinbeck make Crooks' return to isolation so heartbreaking? 13. Do you think he really wouldn't want to live on the Dream Farm/doesn't believe in it or is there another reason for his sudden change [remember what has just happened with Curley's Wife]? Crooks avoided the whole subject now. “Maybe you guys better go,” he said. “I ain’t sure I want you in here no more. A colored man got to have some rights even if he don’t like ‘em.” Candy said, “That bitch didn’t ought to of said that to you.” “It wasn’t nothing,” Crooks said dully. “You guys comin’ in an’ settin’ made me forget. What she says is true.” The horses snorted out in the barn and the chains rang and a voice called, “Lennie. Oh, Lennie. You in the barn?” “It’s George,” Lennie cried. And he answered, “Here, George. I’m right in here.” In a second George stood framed in the door, and he looked disapprovingly about. “What you doin’ in Crooks’ room? You hadn’t ought to be here.” Crooks nodded. “I tol’ ‘em, but they come in anyways.” “Well, why’n’t you kick ‘em out?” “I di’n’t care much,” said Crooks. “Lennie’s a nice fella.” Now Candy aroused himself. “Oh, George! I been figurin’ and figurin’. I got it doped out how we can even make some money on them rabbits.” George scowled. “I thought I tol’ you not to tell nobody about that.” Candy was crestfallen. “Didn’t tell nobody but Crooks.” George said, “Well you guys get outa here. Jesus, seems like I can’t go away for a minute.” Candy and Lennie stood up and went toward the door. Crooks called, “Candy!” “Huh?” “’Member what I said about hoein’ and doin’ odd jobs?” “Yeah,” said Candy. “I remember.” “Well, jus’ forget it,” said Crooks. “I didn’t mean it. Jus’ foolin’. I wouldn’ want to go no place like that.” |
"I could get you strung upon a tree so easy": in post civil-war, post-slavery America, there was still no equal justice. Lynchings and hangings of African-Americans who had dared to not respect the supremacy of white society were hanged so routinely that a popular jazz song, Strange Fruit focussed on the topic.
Why is Crooks so scared of Curley's Wife?
In 1930s America, if a white woman accused a black man of a crime, he was guilty. The most famous case of this was The Scottsboro Boys:
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