Racial Prejudice

• The racism Crooks experiences is perhaps one of the most shocking themes in the novella. Unfortunately, the way Crooks is treated would have been fairly typical of the experiences of many black people in America in the 1930s.
• Crooks is segregated from the other ranch workers, meaning he is forced to live separately to them. This is because of racist attitudes at the time.
• Crooks recognises that the other men think they are better than him: “They play cards in there, but I can't play because I'm black. They say I stink.” (Crooks, Section 4).
• Crooks is clearly used to being treated badly, and he is defiant about it: he tries to act like he doesn’t care what other people think of him: “They say I stink. Well, I tell you, you all of you stink to me." (Crooks, Section 4).
• Because Crooks has so little power, he is very defensive of what little he has. For example, the barn where he lives is his domain, and he likes to control his space by not allowing others to come in: "You got no right to come in my room. This here's my room. Nobody got any right in here but me." (Crooks, Section 4).
• Although not all characters display racist behaviour, nobody ever intervenes and stops the racism, suggesting that it is accepted as a normal part of life on the ranch.
• Candy’s repeated use of racist language when referring to Crooks is, to a modern reader, shocking and disturbing. But none of the other men challenge him: “Ya see the stable buck's a n**ger.” (Candy, Section 2).
• Candy also tells an anecdote about the previous Christmas, where the men had arranged fights with Crooks for entertainment. Candy talks about this disturbing incident as if it is a fond memory: “Jesus, we had fun!” (Candy, Section 2)
• Curley’s wife, when Crooks asks her to leave his barn, threatens to have him killed: “I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny.” (Curley’s wife, Section 4). This attack is clearly a way of Curley’s wife reminding Crooks that, as a white person at the time, she has power over him.