king of barley. He apparently has no family he feels he can go and live with in his old age.
Candy’s loneliness is reflected in his eagerness to gossip to newcomers George and Lennie when they arrive on the ranch, and is ready and willing to embrace and fund the dream George shares with Lennie. He enjoys George’s fantasy that he can ‘hoe in the garden even after [he] ain’t no good at it.’ (P88) but has a clear understanding that he will no longer be needed on the ranch soon. Steinbeck uses the metaphor of Candy’s dog to show that time is rapidly running out for him and that the boss will ‘can’ him just as soon as his use becomes unwelcome. Candy laments, ‘You seen what they done to my dog tonight? They say he wasn’t no good to himself nor nobody else. When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me. But they won’t do nothing like that. I won’t have no place to go’. (P. 88) This evokes a feeling of pity and sadness in the reader, as Candy would rather end his suffering than continue his lonely and isolated existence. However, this feeling changes ever-so-slightly when his loneliness is matched by his bitter disappointment and anger when he finds Curley’s wife dead, and realises that now the dream will never come true. However, if one considers the cultural context of the time, as well as how tough and solitary his life is, we could perhaps forgive his lack of sympathy over the death of a ‘tart’ he believes has shattered his future.
Just like many characters in the novel, Steinbeck introduces Crooks from the perspective of other people before we meet him properly in section four. Characteristically, he is ‘aloof’ in his room, where he spends the majority of his time. Crooks is even lonelier than old Candy, due to him being a black, crippled man. He is entirely excluded from the bunk house, except for one occasion mentioned by Candy, when Smitty ‘took after him’ and ‘woulda killed the nigger’ if he was able to use his feet in the fight. (P. 41) In this brief introduction by Candy to George and Lennie, although repeatedly defined as a ‘nigger’, he is also classified as a ‘nice fella, too’, with ‘books in his room’, suggesting that this is one way Crooks stave off the loneliness he suffers as a result of his colour and ‘crooked back where a horse kicked him’ (P41).
Crooks is the only black character in the novel and is proud of the fact that he is not a ‘southern negro’ (P. 102), a reference to him having no recent family history of slavery. Nevertheless, if he was living in the southern states of Mississippi or Alabama, at least he would have much more of a black community around him. Here in Solidad, California, he does not suffer the obvious hatred and aggression of the South but he is very segregated and lonely. His one social outlet is playing horseshoes with the other workers, a game he seems to win a little respect for due to his prowess.
Crooks is a proud man, and it is this pride which makes him reject what he cannot have: Lennie’s friendship and a chance to share their dream of owning their own land. Therefore, when Lennie tries to befriend him at the beginning of section four, Crooks first tries to expel Lennie from his harness room, stating ‘You got no right to come in my room. This here’s my room. Nobody got any right in here but me’ (P. 99-101). Steinbeck’s repetition of the word ‘right’, highlights the fact that Crooks has very few civil rights on the ranch. Furthermore, he seems envious of Lennie’s close relationship with George, enough to torment the defenceless Lennie by suggesting that George has abandoned him forever and thus he will be left alone. Realising that he can state whatever he wishes to Lennie without anyone finding out, he confesses to him, ‘S’pose you couldn’t go in the bunk house and play rummy ‘cause you was black. How’d you like that? S’pose you had to sit out here an’ read books. Sure you could pay horseshoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain’t no good. A guy needs somebody – to be near him’ (P. 105). This symbolises the shear isolation and seclusion suffered by