Why does crooks tease lennie

She sums up her situation, admitting that she feels pathetic to want company so desperately that she is willing to talk to the likes of Crooks, Candy, and Lennie.

She teases Lennie about the bruises on his face, deducing that he got injured in the scuffle with Curley. Fed up, Crooks insists that she leave before he tells the boss about her wicked ways, and she responds by asking if he knows what she can do to him if he says anything.

The implication is clear that she could easily have him lynched, and he cowers. Candy says that he hears the men coming back, which finally makes her leave, but not before she tells Lennie that she is glad he beat her husband.

George appears, and criticizes Candy for talking about their farm in front of other people. This section introduces the character of Crooks, who has previously only made a brief appearance. Like the other men in the novella, Crooks is a lonely figure. Like Candy, a physical disability sets him apart from the other workers, and makes him worry that he will soon wear out his usefulness on the ranch.

He feels this isolation keenly and has an understandably bitter reaction to it. The character of Crooks is an authorial achievement on several levels. The reader has already witnessed how the world conspires to crush men who are debilitated by physical or mental infirmities. With Crooks, the same unjust, predatory rules hold true for people based on the color of their skin. When she suggests that she could have him lynched, he can mount no defense.

Lennie might be a bit too innocent and Curley a bit too antagonistic for the reader to believe in them as real, complex human beings. Crooks, on the other hand, exhibits an ambivalence that makes him one of the more complicated and believably human characters in the novella.

Not only will the strong attack the weak but the weak will attack the weaker. On the ranch, however, they are pitted against one another. But because she is as pathetic as the men who sit before her, she seeks out the sources of their weakness and attacks them. Ace your assignments with our guide to Of Mice and Men! While the rest of the men share a bunkhouse, so are able to speak to each other and at least experience some elements of friendship at times, Crooks is made to sleep on his own in the stable.

Crooks Crooks is the only black man on the ranch and experiences a significant amount of racism and discrimination. Bitter How is Crooks like this? Analysis Crooks clearly enjoys tormenting Lennie by suggesting that George will abandon him.

Discriminated against How is Crooks like this? Analysis Racial slurs are used to describe Crooks frequently on the ranch. When Curley's wife protests that Curley doesn't spend time with her, hates everyone else, and just talks about fighting, she suddenly remembers Curley's smashed hand and asks what happened to it. Candy tells her twice that Curley caught it in a machine, but she doesn't believe him.

Lennie watches her, fascinated, and Crooks keeps very quiet. Finally, Candy tells her to go away because she is not wanted in the barn. She will get them fired, he adds, and they don't need to hit the highway yet because they have other ideas, like getting their own place. At this revelation, Curley's wife laughs at the men and says it will never happen. Before she leaves, she asks Lennie where he got the bruises on his face. Guiltily, Lennie says Curley got his hand caught in a machine.

When she continues to talk to Lennie, Crooks tells her she has no right in his room and that he is going to tell the boss to keep her out. Curley's wife threatens Crooks with lynching. When Candy says that he and Lennie would tell on her for framing Crooks, she counters by saying no one will listen to the old swamper.