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Prejudice exhibited in Of Mice And Men

Uploaded by Gotskillz on Dec 21, 2004

Everywhere you look there is prejudice, you may be the wrong colour, worship the wrong God or wear the wrong thing. No-one fits into our idealistic world perfectly. This prejudice has been around for thousands of years because it is just human nature not to accept people for who they are.

In Of Mice And Men there are several different levels of prejudice shown, all contributing to the failure of the American dream. The main types of prejudice shown in this novel are racial, sexual and social prejudice.

This essay is firstly going to look at racial prejudice. There is much racial prejudice shown in Of Mice And Men towards Crooks the black crippled stable buck. Crooks is more permanent than the other ranch hands and has his own room off the stables with many more possessions than them. This room is made out to be a privilege and also because it means he is nearer to the horses but in fact it is really because the other ranch hands do not want him in the bunk house with them. As a result of this prejudice Crooks has become bitter and very lonely.

When Lennie comes to pet the puppies, not even realising that Crooks’ room is ‘out of bounds’, Crooks instantly becomes defensive and uncivil "I ain’t wanted in the bunk room and you ain’t wanted in my room" but Lennie in his childish innocence is completely without prejudice " Why aint you wanted" he asks. Crooks retaliates to this with: "Cause I’m black, they play cards in there but I can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink. Well I tell you, all of you stink to me" This line showing that Crooks desperately wants to join in, be accepted, but because of his colour he can’t and so he feels the only way he can make himself feel better is to cut himself off further, it is a vicious circle.

When Crooks realises that Lennie means no harm he invites him to " Come on in and set a while" Lennie begins to talk about George and his dream, it makes Crooks reminisce to his childhood which he looks on as a kind of paradise. "The white kids come to play at our place, an’ sometimes I went to play with them and some of them were pretty nice. My ol’ man didn’t like that. I...

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Uploaded by:   Gotskillz

Date:   12/21/2004

Category:   Literature

Length:   7 pages (1,628 words)

Views:   12769

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