Quotes Flashcards
(44 cards)
Crooks - segregation
Lives in a ‘little shed that leaned off the wall of the barn’
Slim and George’s conversation ‘They let him [Crooks] come in that night’
Crooks’ life
Crooks reveals that the white kids would come to play at his place but his ‘ol’ man didn’t like that’
‘there’s jus’ one family in Soledad’
Crooks - rejects companionship
-when Lennie comes into his room, he ‘stiffened and a scowl came on his face. His hand came out from under his shirt’
When Candy comes into his room, he says ‘if ever’body’s comin’ in, you might just as well’
Crooks - effects of loneliness
-He tells Lennie, ‘a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick’
Curley’s wife – treatment on the ranch
when George first sees her, he calls her a ‘tramp’ and ‘jailbait’
She says to Lennie, ‘You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad’
Curley’s wife – seeks attention
‘She had full rouged lips’, ‘heavily made up’, ‘her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters’, ‘she wore a cotton house dress and red mules’
called a ‘jailbait’
Candy - old and handicapped
‘When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me. But they won’t do nothing like that. I won’t have no place to go, an’ I can’t get no more jobs’ (tells G+L)
Candy’s dog
’pale, blind old eyes’, ‘struggled lamely’
Candy says, ‘God, he was a good sheep dog when he was younger’
‘I been around him so much I never notice how he stinks’
George description
‘small and quick’ with ‘sharp, strong features’
‘sharply’ and ‘gently’
Lennie description
‘his [George’s] opposite, a huge man, shapeless of face’
-moves his feet ‘the way a bear drags his paws’
‘snorting into the water like a horse’
‘dabbled’ and ‘timidly’
George and Lennie’s dynamic
‘both wore shapeless hats and both carried tight blanket rolls slung over their shoulders’
’even in the open one [Lennie] stayed behind the other [George]’
Lennie ‘imitates George exactly’
George and Lennie’s symbiotic relationship
‘I got you to look after me, and you go me to look after you’
Lennie’s liability
‘You can’t keep a job and you lose me ever’ job I get’
In the fight: ’Lennie looked helplessly at George’
Compared to Candy’s dog - ’he [the dog] ain’t no good to you [Candy]’ and ‘That dog ain’t no good to himself’ (Carlson says to Candy)
George and Slim
‘You wouldn’ tell?…No, ‘course you wouldn’
’I can see Lennie ain’t a bit mean’
‘You hadda, George. I swear you hadda’
Impossibility of the dream
In the beginning, when they talk about their dreams, George says they will have ‘Red and blue and green rabbits, Lennie. Millions of ‘em’
’This thing they had never really believed in was coming true.’
Crooks says, ‘An’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it.’
’a whore house or a blackjack game took what it takes’
Impossibility of the dream - Eden
the giant sycamore whose low branch is ‘worn smooth by men who have sat on it’
Crooks scoffs: ‘Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of land’ (tells Lennie)
Escapism
Workers had ’Western magazines ranch men love to read and scoff at and secretly believe’
’a whore house or a blackjack game took what it takes’
Return to childhood innocence
Crooks, ‘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’
George, ‘I can build a smoke house like the one gran’pa had’
Hope for a dream
’Bill and me worked in that patch of field peas. Run cultivators, both of us’
Curley’s wife’s dream
she had ‘full, rouged lips’, her hair ‘in little rolled clusters’
’Coulda been in the moves, an’ had nice clothes’ ,‘coulda sat in them big hotels’ and ‘had pitchers took of me’
‘I tell you I ain’t used to livin’ like this. I coulda made something’ of myself.’ She said darkly. ‘Maybe I will yet.’
’because this guy says I was a natural’
George and Lennie’s dream
‘We’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens.’
’live off the fatta the lan’
’we’d have our own place where we belonged and not sleep in no bunk house’
Spread of the dream - Candy
Candy offers 300 dollars
’They looked at one another, amazed. This thing they had never really believed in was coming true.’
Spread of the dream - Crooks
‘If you…guys would want a hand to work for nothing’
‘Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you’
‘You got no rights comin’ in a colored mans room.’ (to Curley’s wife)
Death of the dream - Crooks
Crooks ‘reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego’
he returns to loneliness, ‘rubbing his back’
