Abandonment Haunts - blog #4

Abandonment Haunts Crooks to the Point Where He Uses His Pain to Hurt Others

     In Of Mice and Men, Crooks has finally shown his true colors in part four. Crooks is an African-American who works on the same farm as George and Lennie; his childhood and adulthood made him put up his walls to make sure others don't get to him. Crooks tells Lennie of his "happy" childhood when Lennie, a man who lives off of the words of George, is in Crook's only place.  At the start Crooks was irritated, when he started describing his childhood his hostile tone changed to a sweet one "the stable buck went on dreamily, '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. Used to sleep right in the same room, right in the same bed-all three. Had a strawberry patch. Had an alfalfa patch. Used to turn the chickens out in the alfalfa on a sunny morning. My brothers'd set on a fence rail an' watch 'em-white chickens they was'"(73). Crooks, our stable buck, seemingly had a nice childhood; I am here to tell you differently. Only paragraphs earlier, Crooks was emphasizing on his loneliness and blaming it on the fact of his skin color. The stable buck has a right to be bitter because of how he's treated based on the color of his skin, "'s'pose you didn't have nobody. S'pose you couldn't go into the bunkhouse and play rummy 'cause you was black. How'd you like that? S'pose you had to sit out here an' read books'"(72). If you read both of these quotes together, it shows how Crooks once had people near him, and now he's all alone. From how Crooks turned on Lennie, we can guess that Crooks was once susceptible to the loss of a loved one. When Lennie first entered Crook's home, Crooks turns of him and starts saying things to hurt Lennie "his 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?'"(71). Crooks is trying to rattle Lennie, suggesting that George would never come back. From the way Crooks is talking to Lennie, we can assume he is jealous of the fact that Lennie has somebody to care for him. During this entire discussion, Lennie was scared, that's how our stable buck wanted it to be; he wanted Lennie to see his loneliness "Crooks said gently, 'Maybe you can see now. You got George. You know he's goin' to come back'"(72). The now gentle American now realized that this is all about himself. Crooks even admits to talking about himself after he persuades Lennie that George won't come back "'I didn't mean to scare you. He'll come back. I was talkin' about myself"'(73). This whole time, Crooks was only torturing Lennie to make Lennie feel how he feels everyday of his life.