Curley’s Wife And Crooks As Victims Of Discrimination In Of Mice And Men
“Of Mice and Men” is a story that weaves collective racial and gender discrimination within a setting of dysfunctional personal relationships. It shows on the one hand how very difficult it is for victims of discrimination to escape their circumstances and, on the other, how the self-perpetuating attitudes of the participants often lead to violence and tragedy because they cannot conceive of any alternative resolution. One of the victims who is abused both emotionally and physically is Curley’s wife. Her dream had always been to become a movie star and leave her small town behind but, what she really needed was to finally escape the ranch and her dissatisfying marriage. The odds of that happening were very low because she felt duty-bound to be with her husband. However, he constantly made her feel unimportant and isolated her from other social contact. This led her to being flirtatious with other men at the ranch. She could only use her womanhood to gain attention, but this resulted for her to being labelled as manipulative to men. Indeed, many of the men on the ranch felt threatened by her, often referring to her “jailbait” by her playful behaviour “I never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her. You leave her be.”
It is very clear that throughout the whole novel, Steinbeck does not give Curley’s wife a name and only refers to her as ‘his wife’, as if she is a possession to own and not a real person. She has no other name but that of being an object of Curley. In a way this shows that she is treated as a girl and not as a woman. Curley constantly orders her about and exhibits her as a trophy wife. This is a classic example of how women were treated like victims at the time and how unpleasant their lives could be. On top of Curley’s wife being unable to escape her life at the ranch and being treated like an object, she is not allowed to interact with any other men except her husband “Sat’iday night. Ever’body out doin’ som’pin’. Ever’body! An’ what am I doin’? Standin’ here talkin’ to a bunch of bindle stiffs–“),(I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely.” By this unacceptable behaviour Curley’s wife admitted that she never loved him because of his disgraceful behaviour towards her. Curley made it clear that if she even talked to men at the ranch, there would be major consequences (because of his possessiveness, arrogance, insecurity, jealousy, impoliteness, disrespect and mistreating behavior). It is proven once again that a woman like Curley’s wife is restricted to only fulfilling her husband’s orders and to being a devoted wife. In this case this is not neither ideal or convenient for Curley’s wife since her marriage to him is toxic, unhealthy and most importantly, there is no emotional connection between the two. This greatly shows how stereotypical women became because of the fact that they were in never-ending fear on what their husbands would do to them, and how their husbands treated them at the society they lived within. Moving on from gender discrimination, someone who plays a significant part in being a victim of their society is Crooks. There aren’t any times where Crooks is not discriminated against because of the color of his skin. The racism directed towards him is very obvious and hidden by all the other characters on the ranch. No-one ever calls him by his real name but is referred to as nothing but a “nigger”. “This is just a nigger talkin’, an’ a busted-back nigger. So it don’t mean nothing, see?”. He tries his best to draw attention to himself and shows how little he is respected and how no thought is shown to his feelings. No one on the ranch is interested in what Crooks has to say and is not even allowed to talk to any people who are not of his race. In addition, Crooks being the only black man on the ranch, is completely isolated from the others and does not receive any companionship. Unlike the other workers on the ranch, he is prohibited from sleeping and staying in the bunkhouse because of his race.
Instead Crooks has his own small room attached to the barn, here he lives alone. While the rest of the men are at the bunkhouse, talking and being friendly at eachother, Crooks is made to sleep on his own at the stable where he gets no company from his peers “A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody.”, ”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. Sure you could play horsedhoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books aint no good. A guy needs somebody to be near him”. He is treated in an inhumane way which makes him bitter towards anyone who approaches him. That leads to Crooks receiving pleasure in mentally hurting Lennie because he has been hurt by so many other people before (“Crooks’ face lighted with pleasure at the torture.”). Crooks can be seen as an unpleasant character by his cruelty towards Lennie who seems to be very innocent, friendly and has been nice to him. However, when Crooks starts to talk about the amount of racism, he has experienced it becomes more comprehensible why he has this sort of behavior. Considering that both Curley’s wife and Crooks are discriminated by gender and race there are a few important similarities to the way that they are treated as victims of their society. Of course, they are both isolated by not being allowed to interact with other people who are on the ranch but also treated as objects not humans which is completely uncivil for both characters.
