Crooks, the Stable Buck

Crooks, The stable buck on the ranch, is always alone and isolated from the other workers on the ranch.

In the story Of Mice and Men, we get to know Crooks a little better near the end of the book, but during the first part of the story, he is only a myth or a legend sort of, because he never appears until later. The workers talk about Crooks quite a bit, but he makes his appearances brief, until later; otherwise, he is "hidden". The book was first published in 1937, so we get a sense of the time frame of the setting. Racial segregation was ended in 1964, with the civil rights act. the book was taken place before this. this explains why Crooks could not stay with the other white workers when living on the ranch. He could not play their card games with them. All he could do was play horse shoes by himself (except for the tournament) and read books. He wanted to let Lennie know about his loneliness, by telling Lennie George was not coming back, trying to show Lennie and make him understand, and that was his cry for help, and the author lets us know this through what he says to Lennie (pg. 72, Of Mice and Men, 1993). During this time, African Americans where not allowed to vote, and did not have the same rights as everyone else. We can tell this story takes place after the Emancipation Proclamation, because Crooks makes money, and he works on the ranch voluntarily. We know, after his scene, that Crooks is a lonely man, because he doesn't have the same rights as the white workers and is isolated. We see this also when Candy is embarrassed when he is allowed to come into Crook's room. this is because he feels guilty of not allowing Crooks into the cabin for the white workers, but Crooks allows him into his room. We then understand the segregation of Crooks and why he ends up to be so lonely.