Blog Post #4
This week in reading:

In this weeks reading we get a closer look at Curley and his wife, and another review of the farm that Lennie, George and Candy want to buy and run. Or maybe I should call it daydreaming about their farm.

We also get a look at Crooks who is the handyman on the farm and lives alone in a room because he is black. As we already know, Steinbeck wrote this book in 1937 and there was a lot of racism and discrimination going on. Crooks is the character that definitely shows us how this segregation period even influenced the workers on a farm in California.

I just finished chapter 4 and in this chapter George and the other guys except Lennie, Candy (the old man) and Crooks, left to a whorehouse. Lennie decides to go into Crooks room which is something no white man has ever done since Crooks started working at the farm. Crooks tells him about his early life and Lennie tells him fantasies from the farm that he one day wants to live on and pet rabbits on. The old man Candy comes and joins them, which seems awkward at first for Crooks and Candy because Candy has never been in his room, but Crooks is just happy to have more company. Crooks even seems to open up and tells the guys about his loneliness, and how he feels separated from the group.

Lennie and Candy continue to daydream about their new and perfect farm and Crooks seems interested. When Curley’s wife walks in. Curley is the boss’s son and his new wife complains about their marriage to the guys, but they don’t care about her at all and tell her to leave. They tell it to her in a very respectful way, because they know she can get them fired or in Crooks case even lynched if she wanted to. Every time Curley’s wife shows up, the first thing she does is to ask where her husband is as if she was looking for him. It feels more like she is trying to flirt with the other workers on the farm instead of looking for her husband. George always tells Lennie that he should stay away from Curley’s wife because George is smart and he knows that women like her can cause a lot of trouble. 

Candy, Crooks, Curley's wife and Lennie