During Part 4 of Steinbeck’s novel he seems to revolve most of the emotion in this chapter around one minor character, ‘the negro stable buck’ Crooks who finds himself a lonely man in desperate need of company but to shameful of his ethnicity to find someone to talk to. This is important to analyse as it reflects to the reader what emotions Steinbeck thought of black people during his time and how they must feel to be discriminated. To start with at the beginning of the chapter, the first paragraph can instantly convey the loneliness Crooks feels.
The fact that he lives by himself and not with the ranch men because of his supposed lack of right tells us that the ranch men feel it’s wrong to come in contact with Crooks just because of his skin colour. This makes Crooks instantly seem like a sad and lonely character because he is unable to share his life and communicate properly with other people. Also the fact that he owns multiple-reading books and the ranch men do not show that he may be the most intellectual person on the ranch but it still discriminated for it making his intellect a wasted skill.
The next sign of emotion towards Crooks is on the bottom of Page 67 when he warns Lennie about entering his room; he says sharply, ‘‘You got no right to come in my room. This here’s my room. Nobody got any right in here but me’’. Crooks does this because of his lack of rights and those that he does have must be taken for granted (like his room light, which Lennie was attracted to) and be protective of otherwise he will stand for nothing in his already lonely and unnecessary life (in his opinion).
However, he makes pauses in his speech to hint to Lennie that he secretly wants company but is still wary of a white man’s presence (little does Crooks know that Lennie is too naive to discriminate). Later on Page 70 and 73 when Crooks opens up to Lennie about his childhood on his father’s farm, he becomes reminiscent of when he used to play along with the white kids without being teased or excluded for his skin-colour and this illustrates to the reader that Crooks misses those old days and longs for them to have stayed true, to be of equal status with the ‘other’ people yet it’s an unachievable goal.
The fact that Crooks, ‘went on dreamily’ when returning to his childhood on Page 73 makes the reader realise that his memories are the only thing that keeps him mentally going because of his longing to return to the plain and equal life he used to live.
