Chapter Four Study Guide Name:
Of Mice and Men Mrs. Mckniff
1. This chapter focuses on Crooks, the black stable buck who lives in the harness room, a shed off the barn. Make a list of the details Steinbeck gives about the harness room, and comment on the feeling conveyed by these details.
2. What do we learn about Crooks’ appearance from Steinbeck’s description on page 67?
3. Why doesn’t Crooks want Lennie to come into his room?
4. Why isn’t Crooks wanted in the bunk house?
5. Why does he relent and tell Lennie to come in?
6. What does Crooks like about talking to Lennie?
7. Comment on Crook’s statement, “I seen it over an’ over –a guy talkin’ to another guy and it don’t make no difference if he don’t hear or understand. The thing is, they’re talkin’, or they’re settin’ still not talkin.’ It don’t make no difference, no difference.”
8. What is the significance of Lennie’s comment, “George is careful,” and why is Crooks deliberately trying to scare Lennie?
9. Why does Crooks start backing away?
10. Comment on what Crooks says to Lennie: “A guy needs somebody—to be near him. . . A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you. I tell ya, a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.”
11. Comment on Crooks’ observations about life on the ranch: “I seen hundreds of men come by on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads. Hundreds of them. They come, an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a *** damn one of ‘em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody ever gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s jus’ in their head.”
12. Why is Candy reluctant to enter Crooks’ room, and why does Crooks invite him in anyway?
13. What is the significance of Candy’s statement: “Everybody wants a little bit of land, not much. Jus’ som’thin’ that was his. Somethin’ he could live on and there couldn’t nobody throw him off of it.”
14. Why is Crooks suddenly interested in joining them?
15. Curley’s wife appears at the door of Crooks’ room. What impression does she make silhouetted in the doorway?
16. Why does she say, “They left all the weak one’s here,” and in what ways are Curley’s wife and Crooks alike?
17. Why does she tell the men about the guy who wanted to put her in the movies?
18. What is the significance of her comment, “An’ what am I doin’? Standin’ here talkin’ to a bunch of bindle stiffs—a n***** an’ a dum-dum and a lousy ol’ sheep—an’ likin’ it because they ain’t nobody else.”
19. Why does Curley’s wife say, “I like machines” (80)?
20. Comment on the sentence, “Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego—nothing to arouse either like or dislike.”
21. Why is George displeased that Lennie is in Crooks’ room?
22. Steinbeck starts and ends the chapter with Crooks putting liniment on his back. Why does he repeat this detail?