Section 4 Summary

The next evening, Crooks is sitting on his bunk in the harness room. Lennie appears at the entrance, desiring company. Crooks tells him just as black men are not allowed in white men’s quarters, he too doesn’t allow a white man to enter his. Lennie doesn’t seem to understand. He smiles innocently and says that everyone else has gone to town, and seeing Crooks’ light on, he came here to give him some company. Crooks realizes he is not a threat and allows Lennie inside.

Lennie forgets about George directing him to keep their farm dream a secret and starts babbling about it to Crooks. Crooks considers it as a fantasy of Lennie’s intellectual disability. He discusses his own life, narrating his early days on a chicken farm when white children visited and played with him. Despite their company, he still felt alone. His family was the only black family for miles. His father had always cautioned him about their white neighbors. While as a child he couldn’t fathom the significance of this counsel, as an adult and the only black man at the ranch, he resents the unfair social norms that require him to sleep separately in the stable.

Feeling resentful, Crooks taunts Lennie and lies about how George will not return to the farm. Lennie gets angry and demands to know who has hurt George, to which Crooks hastily backtracks and assures him that he will come back. They start talking about their childhood again, which takes Lennie back to his dream. Crooks dismisses the idea, stating that he has witnessed many men wishing for such a dream but none has come to pass. A little piece of land, he declares, is as hard to find as heaven.

Candy joins the men, entering Crooks’ place for the first time. Both men are uncomfortable initially, but Candy is respectful and Crooks is pleased to have more company. As the men talk, Crooks again dismisses the idea of Lennie’s farm to which Candy asserts that they have already picked out the land and almost possess the money to buy it. Crooks is intrigued by Candy’s participation in this venture and shyly suggests if they can possibly take him too.

This happy planning is interrupted by the entrance of Curley’s wife. She tells them that she is aware that the other men have gone to the whorehouse and mocks them as being weak and left out. Candy and Crooks tell her to leave, but she starts talking about her loneliness and unhappy marriage. Candy still insists, asking her to leave, and proudly claims that even if she succeeds in getting them fired, they could still buy their land and live in peace. Curley’s wife laughs at this idea. She then proceeds to bitterly complain about her marriage, admitting that the situation is so pathetic that she is reduced to seeking companionship in men like them. She enquires about what had happened to her husband’s hand. When the men explain that it’s a machine injury, she scoffs at it. She teases Lennie about the wounds on his face, thereby making it clear that she understands that this is a consequence of his scuffle with her husband.

Crooks is infuriated by this time and warns her to leave before he informs the boss. She asks whether he is aware of what she can do to him if he does so. Crooks relents, knowing that she could easily have him lynched. The other men are heard approaching, which finally makes her leave. Before departing, she lets Lennie know that she is glad that he hit her husband. George enters and rebukes Candy for discussing their farm even after being told not to. As the men leave, Crooks yells that he wouldn’t consider going with them.

Section 4 Analysis

This section delves deep into the character of Crooks, a character who hasn’t yet been explored so far. Like every other man on the ranch, Crooks too suffers from loneliness. However, as he is black, he is even more lonely because of segregation—he is not allowed into the white men’s quarters; neither is he invited to join in their leisurely activities. He feels this isolation acutely, which has understandably left him embittered.

Crooks is vital for two reasons. First, Steinbeck has already established the central theme—of how predatory the world is which always conspires to crush the weak and infirm. With the character of Crooks, race as an additional concern is introduced in the novel where he is more disadvantaged than the other men. The threat of his color is so real that that is all Curley’s wife requires to silence him. When she suggests that she can have him lynched, he retreats powerless.

The second significance of Crooks lies in his complex characterization. So far, the characters have remained mostly one-dimensional—Lennie is too innocent; Curley too suspicious; George cynical. But in Crooks, we see a man who is conflicted—while he is bitter and dismissive about Lennie’s farm talk, he is also seduced by the idea of a better life; while he promptly establishes that he doesn’t prefer white men entering his space, he is also pleased when he receives company. Despite craving companionship, he cannot restrain himself from lashing out at Lennie when he cruelly suggests that George has been hurt and will not come back to the farm. Here the reader witnesses how the world not only attacks the weak, the weak even attack the weaker. Hence, Crooks berates Lennie until he threatens to physically harm him; Crooks calls Curley’s wife a tramp until she threatens him to have him lynched. All the characters in this section are weak and vulnerable in some form, for which society punishes them. This twisted and dark view of humanity serves to underline how all these characters are furthermore disadvantaged as instead of supporting each other, they lay bare each other’s vulnerabilities and prey on them. Curley’s wife is also weak because of her gender and loveless marriage and while she admits the same to the men, she too is cruel and pathetic enough to use whatever power she has to exert Curley’s dominance on the men. She is defined by her marriage to Curley.