Part B

One character is different because he is of a different colour. The character’s name is Crooks and he is the negro stable buck. They do not let him live in the same bunk house as the white men. He lives in the stables. Crooks doesn’t like having very many/certain people in his bunk room.

To illustrate how a black man was treated in those days, there is the following exchange:

Crooks stood up from his bunk and faced her.

“I had enough,” he said coldly. “You got no rights comin’ in a colored man’s room. You got no rights messing around in here at all. Now you jus’ get out, an’ get out quick. If you don’t, I’m gonna ast the boss not to ever let you come in the barn no more.”

Yet Curley’s wife doesn’t listen. “Listen Nigger, You know what I can do if you open your trap? You know what I can do?... Well you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung upon a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.” (80)

Another character who is different is one of the main characters - Lennie. We don’t know for sure, but it sounds like he has a mental disability. It is in fact Crooks who is not nice to him.

The following dialog illustrates this:

His [Crooks'] voice grew soft and persuasive. “S’pose George don’t come back no more. S’pose he took a powder and just ain’t coming back. What’ll you do then?”

Lennie’s attention came gradually to what had been said. “What?” he demanded.

“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. (71)

Both Crooks and Lennie are different and they are treated poorly by some characters in the novel. Crooks torments Lennie, maybe as a reaction to the way he himself is treated. This also happens in our society today. My cousin Anna had Down Syndrome; people would stare at her because she looked and acted different. It would be good if people were more accepting.