crooks

Question 1

name the quotes to describe Crooks

Answer 1

• ‘a long box filled with straw on which his blankets were flung’
• ‘crooks’ face lit up with pleasure’
• ‘a guy goes nuts if he aint got nobody’ and if ‘a guy gets too lonely he gets sick’
• ‘nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head.’
• ‘crooks seemed to grow smaller, and he pressed himself against the wall… [he] reduced himself to nothing’

Question 2

Analyse: ‘a long box filled with straw on which his blankets were flung’

Answer 2

• dehumanizes Crooks
• Similar living to the horses he cares for

Context
- Jim crow laws - prevent him from sleeping in the same room as other workers
Steinbeck - lived and worked on a ranch himself so has first hand experiences

Question 3

Analyse:
‘crooks’ face lit up with pleasure’

Answer 3

Steinbeck uses Lennie to provide crooks with a sense of power over Lennie when he describes the reality of what life would be like without George.
- amplifies the pleasure power brings him
- Advantage over people with disability
Context
- treatment of people with disability

Question 4

Analyse:
‘a guy goes nuts if he aint got nobody’
‘a guy gets too lonely he gets sick’

Answer 4

“a guy” gives a generalised tone, suggesting this applies to all men
describes both the mental and physical effects of lonliness
These quotes show a rare moment of vulnerability.
Steinbeck is making a wider social comment on how 1930’s American society, failed to provide compassion and equality.
Human need for connection – Crooks’ reaction emphasizes the universal need for companionship
Context
- Jim crow laws - segregation between white people and people of colour so he is lonely as he doesn’t have anyone to speak to
- KKK - how people of colour were treated

Question 5

Analyse: ‘nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head.’

Answer 5

• Represents religious beliefs of the time
• Naivety
• Steinbeck uses crooks as a mouth piece to get his owns views across about criticising the American Dream
  Context
• Aspirations for the American dream

Question 6

Analyse: ‘you know what I can do to you if you open your trap’
‘well you keep your place then’

Answer 6

• ‘derogatory language’ – used to remove crooks sense of identity and alienate him in society
• the verb ‘easy’ exaggerates the difference in power between the two of them because it refers to how it will not be hard for Curley’s wife to have crooks lynched.
  Context
  reference to the Jim crow laws and the KKK because any evidence of a person of colour offending a white person was a considerable reason for the white supremacist group to attack, kill, lynch or harm that person or their family in any manner they choose.